San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

As opposed to John McCain who promises to fix the financial crisis, cut taxes, stay in Iraq, and balance the budget his first term:

John McCain will balance the budget by the end of his first term.

which is the first line here:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/Jobsfor...

Presto!

Those are great magic tricks, but nothing in comparison to the greatest and most ingenious magician GW Bush who managed to fuck over every American alive today and even those who aren't born yet!

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic?

To start with, let's examine the word magic in this article. Obama's plan cuts taxes for 95% of working families. Let's assume that her claim that 40% of Americans don't pay any income tax is true. According to census data compiled by the US Census Bureau, only 60.1% of the US population is between the ages of 20-64 (the prime working years, where most people are in families). An additional 27.4% are 0-19 years of age (a few of these will pay a small amount of taxes starting at the age of 16), and 12.6% are over 65 (and again, some number of those pay tax but many retirees do not earn enough to). So it's not surprising that 40% of Americans don't pay income tax when we learn how many of them are children and retired or elderly people.

Bottom line, the author of this propaganda piece is not comparing apples to apples. Either she is too thick to understand that "working families" and "Americans" are two different things or she thinks her audience is too thick to catch onto her insincere little word games.

Yes, I agree that Bush consented to an insane amount of spending, whether the prescription drug care plan, increased educational spending, the cost of the war, etc.

He was too ready to go along with the Democrats and liberal Republicans on the budget in order to advance the war to even veto one spending bill. He is a complete fiscal failure.

Moreover, and more important long term, he completely retreated from his positions in attempting to reform Fannie, Freddie, and Social Security after the Democrats countered. He should have gone down with the ship on these.

Also, I don't know what happened to the "fiscal conservatives" in Congress? Maybe they were too intoxicated with DC power and they went along with everything, too?

As a fiscal conservative, I must admit that I'm not too worried about Obama's spending plan. It is so preposterous right now, given the current economic climate, that I don't think it will be enacted, even with a liberal Congress.

In the debate, I believe he said that he would only be raising taxes on 5% of the US Corporations that make $250,000 per year. The great bulk of small businesses fail and, of course, most never bring in $250,000 per year. So, what he is really saying is that he wants to tax the most productive companies in the US who do most of the private-sector hiring during a hyper-recession.

This plan will never get passed. The DC business lobby will kill it. If he really wants to increase social spending to this extent, he will just add to our debt like everyone president before him, but I can't envision a significant increase in corporate taxes anytime soon.

"Either she is too thick to understand that 'working families and Americans' are two different things or she thinks her audience is too thick to catch onto her insincere little word games." It is both. The Democrats are the elitists who think they know what is best for everyone from climate change to the economy. Since they have successfully dumbed down so many of the emerging young voters, what do you expect? Brave New World redux. Okay Gandalf time to weigh in and call me names like you always do when someone dares challenge your Weltanschauung.

Of those 40% who don't pay taxes 90% are democrats.

What about Independents, John?Mr. Smiley

Would you rather be in that group that pays taxes or in the group that doesn't pay taxes? I know where I'd rather be.

Me to but its not that, its how it affects the system.

If the group that doesn't pay taxes becomes the majority then you lose control of government spending. Why should someone who doesn't pay taxes care about the size of government if they preceive to gain benefit from it?

Thanks

John

Concho,

You can go to the IRS web site. The data is all there.

This is from 2002:

Income Group ---- Tax Share
Top 1 percent ---- 33.7 percent
Top 5 percent ---- 53.8 percent
Top 10 percent ---- 65.7 percent
Top 25 percent ---- 83.9 percent
Top 50 percent ---- 96.5 percent

John

Well it's obvious from John's post that we have to do something about the greedy bottom 50% that are sucking off the government teat. I think work camps with microchips in their neck to keep track of productivity. The can work for 1500 calories a day and the camps will be privatized because of course the stupid USG could never handle a job like that.

That is what we would do in Hannity's America. Drill, Drill, Drill, baby....

Naw, Veritas. No names today. It's okay. 90% of Piggs is always great, very cool. I'm pretty laid back most of the time, focus on work and family.

Have to understand, not ordinary times in our country anymore. The right-wing talk-show thing has gone over the top, partisan, dishonest and irresponsible. Most of the people I know are done with it, no more "bash-the-democrats" business. Not the time. Not during war. Not with everything AT RISK the way it is. Look at the polls, that's where most of the country is. Enough already.

BTW, I'm completely okay with substantive and honest discussions. Completely okay with people who disagree, so long as they're not disagreeable. Piggs is usually good because it's generally more substantive than the talking point nonsense you read elsewhere on the Internet.

Moving on, how about this bailout business? Where do you stand? I'm genuinely conflicted. Risks for systemic meltdown are there. They're real. But I'm a capitalist, and the bailout is worse than socialism, it's corrupt and something they'd do in Russia. We're about to create a nationalized banking system. Amazing. Is there any way to 'let it crash' without taking down the broader economy?

Also, I have to say, this whole inflation versus deflation debate is just fascinating, in a sick and macabre sort of way, it's like watching a train wreck in slow-motion, scientific curiosity to see what happens.

I cast my cards with kewp. Deflation rules the day for now because money supply (created through loose credit) is going up in smoke as we speak, in massive amouts. Down the road, if the economy starts to roll again and employment picks back up, we might see vicious inflation, but right now, I'm thinking "Cash is king."

OTH, there are a few scenarios out there leading to a dollar crisis. Foreign policy plays a role. Frightening stuff, and serious business. I wonder how many people are just cruising along on auto-pilot, no clue as to the magnitude of the risks we face right now... Just surreal.

This too shall pass.

What a typical comment.

Please ignore the facts when they are presented to you or change the subject into something that would be just "hilarious on Huffington Post Slate.com?" "Drill, baby, Drill," an instant laugh for urban liberals who never drive and don't run businesses.

Also, yes, it is always a good idea to give billions of unearned dollars to the American consumer (who don't pay taxes) to spend on new HD TVs and rims for their SUV. Better yet, increase taxes on American corporations who actually hire people to pay for it . . . during a recession. Fantastic idea.

If America wants Obamanomics, great. However, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

John, two quick comments regarding taxation:

1. Relative tax contributions as mapped against the accumulation of wealth (which only loosely equates to what we term 'income' in the tax sense), have become far more regressive over the past 30-40 years.

2. There is a fundamental problems with our tax system and it involves the definition of income. In a traditional economic sense, income is what an entity 'makes' each year, the difference in wealth year over year. We should stop playing games with what we classify as income, decrease loopholes, tax shelters, and crackdown on tax avoidance.

A fairer and less regressive tax system would be an economic stimulus to the country. Large corporations have become extremely sophisticated in the use of tax avoidance strategies. It is patriotic for these companies to pay taxes. No more 'shirkers'. Poor people are not the issue.

luch, I'm not an urban liberal, I run a business and I wince when I look at the amount of tax we pay each payroll cycle, every quarter, etc.

That said, I find Obama's fiscal proposals to be far more sound and business conservative than McCain and the GOP. Healthcare is an example where sound public policy can translate into improvements on the bottom line in the private sector. Energy policy is another area, and Obama's energy proposals are far superior to the GOP.

In a similar vein, Obama's tax policy proposals strike me as better for business than McCain/GOP. Crackdown on tax avoidance. Fortune 500 companies are posting record profits and shirking taxes offshore. Average business don't have legions of consultants, lawyers and accountants devising tax avoidance strategies.

GOP talking points have been deceptive on the facts, more so in this election than any other I can remember. Ex-GOP here, so I don't drink leftie kool-aid. I'm calling it like I see it. Obama and the Dems are a better choice for my business. Open to substantive comments you might have, specific issues.

"Drill, baby, Drill," an instant laugh for urban liberals who never drive and don't run businesses.

No it's good for a laugh for people that understand the physical realities of peak oil and understand no amount of drilling can change this indisputable fact. Because we like to pretend it's not there so we can make up disney land stories about Iraq being an imminent threat. Hell, even the liberal press ignores the fact that Cheney was caught with his hand in the cookie jar in his secretive "Energy Task Force" meeting from back in 2000 with maps of Iraqi oil fields and was consulted by Matt Simmons regarding peak oil. Any progressive liberals out there want to venture a guess of why the liberal media does not touch that? Let me give you a hint. Complicity. But our press does not like dots to be connected. Because we like fake debates about whether or not is possible to bomb Iraq to a democracy. Never mind the fingerprints of oil men on Iraqi oil wells the moment when world oil production is peaking. The funny part is the Iraqi people want nothing to do with us and now we will not let them be a democracy, oh the irony. In fact we even threatened to steal their assets if they did not allow us to have permanent bases put there. Now that the truth is starting to emerge regarding Iraq, that we were supposed to be there forever. It kind of makes you wonder about GWBs little "mission accomplished" stunt. It makes me think it was staged to for cannon fodder for the liberal media. They never meant to leave. Hell, PNAC and Brezinski wrote about the imminent need to get into central asia back in the late 90s to control it's oil supplies but again the liberal media was absent. No dots to be connected for the peasants, keep arguing about some of the fake debates within our buffet of fake debates.

If America wants Obamanomics, great. However, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

You just don't get it. We are a banana republic regardless who gets in. It's a done deal. The collapse is imminent. The effectiveness of either McCain or Obama to actually try to improve the situation is about as likely as somebody standing on the shore with a bucket and sponge to stop a category 5 hurricane. Actually, arguing the minute details of their tax plans, which is the only difference they have, is like worrying about a hang nail when you have a sucking chest wound. Nonsense.

The US is being thrown into Obama's arms in a typical Hegelian Dialectic and the GOP is throwing the election like a flaming bobcat on meth. Another done deal. That is unless we have to take out Iran but I think they have abandoned that plan. Iran started trading oil in other than the USD a few months ago.

Overall, Americans refuse to acknowledge that not only do presidents and political parties not govern the United States, but they are in fact, irrelevant. The sovereignty of nations has been irreversibly eroded by corporatism and organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission whose agenda is the dissolution of nation-states and the global dominance of multi-national corporations.

THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT ONLY A BUREAUCRACY THAT SUPPORTS CORPORATE AND FINANCIAL INTERESTS. CITIZENS ARE IRRELEVANT.

The fact of the matter is, it is no longer profitable the maintain America and it makes absolutely no sense for the world to subsidize our way of living anymore through dollar hegemony. Our purpose has been fulfilled and now its on to a new reality. Slave camp USA here we come as the whole world gets to dump it's toxic assets on our backs. It was a"Pump and Dump"/collateral damage in larger world domination plan.

If you don't realize the whole civilization is run by money and energy and that is where all power gravitates, you just don't get. Nothing else matters. And everything is to do with maintaining control of those two things. This is what the whole history of civilization is about, domination. What we have been witnessing over the past 10 years is the battle to keep control of those two things. Everything else is spoon fed propaganda to give you a narrative that you find acceptable.

We don't have a banking crisis we have a god damn crisis of awareness But I'm just a koo-koo, nutjob so don't listen to me.

Gandalf-

I am against the bailout because I agree with Rich. The people who got us into it are not the ones to get us out. I am economically more aligned with Adam Smith, than Barney Frank. I think we might be repeating the history of Rome, but not taking as long to disintegrate from within due to excessive taxation and corruption of public officials. I would prefer a flat tax and for those who say it unfairly targets the poor, then why are cigarettes and liguor taxed? Those target the poor more than the rich. End of rant. Good luck to all those businessmen like you Gandalf who are the ones keeping the economy alive. The next four years regardless of which side occupies the White House will be difficult for all.