[no_such_reality]

CBO says expiring tax cuts is $4 Trillion over decade.

Let’s keep it simple and say it’s $400 billion. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/08-22-2012-Update_to_Outlook.pdf

Or let’s just look at CBO baseline revenue projection: $2.913T.

So $3.035T – $2.913T. So I’m short $120 Billion.

Fine increase cuts by 5%.

45% defense. 25%discretionary. Or would you like to quiblle over the $20Billion?

Of 40% defense and 30% discretionary. net $129 Billion gain to close the gap.

Or let’s really have fun, 50% defense, 30% discretionary, expire the tax cuts, payroll cuts and have enough to pay off the debt in 183 Years!

[no_such_reality]

Here, I’ll balance the budget.

Step one, expire the Obama extended Bush tax cuts.
Step two: let the FICA tax reduction expire.
Step three: reduce military budget by 40% bring the war troops home. (Psst, we’ll still be spending a half trillion on the military.)
Step four: reduce discretionary spending by 20%.

There. budget balanced.

IT is the f-ing simple.

[no_such_reality]

Yep all that serious restraint on cars doesn’t really prevent people from being idiots and texting while driving does it?

It’s a very slippery slope to base what the general population can or cannot do on what an obviously mentally deranged person did do.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea][quote=no_such_reality]Basic common sense says a kid(sic) doesn’t kill his mom, take the guns and go slaughter an elementary school.

Okay, let’s quite saying kid, he’s no kid, he was 20.

Sadly, Morgan is right.[/quote]

Basic common sense also says that if you make a weapon capable of mass killings, which has no other realistic use, widely available to masses; only because you believe in a dogma; – bad outcomes will result![/quote]

And history shows an unarmed populace is the next chump.

Or we can just get really draconian and realize the masses are incapable of properly using their car and cell phone so one or the other must go.

[no_such_reality]

flu, that looks like a really long way of saying, Government spending is replacing real growth with house of cards growth.

Or it’s just fancy clothes and dates on a credit card.

[no_such_reality]

Basic common sense says a kid(sic) doesn’t kill his mom, take the guns and go slaughter an elementary school.

Okay, let’s quite saying kid, he’s no kid, he was 20.

Sadly, Morgan is right.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea]
The real killer of these children is an organization who goes by the name NRA which has blocked any sensible common sense gun control in this country. If we had it, I have no doubt that many of these lives would have been saved.
[/quote]

How’s that war on drugs been working out for the last thirty years?

[no_such_reality]

Thanks exsdgal. So between $30-$40K to $50-60K depending on the amount I need to contract and my ability to find the right supplies, trades, bargains. And that’s assuming everything.

i.e. Painting, typically a $50 job (or less) doing it yourself to repaint a bedroom. Probably $500 or so to paint most of the house if just doing walls in simple neutrals.

Doing the whole house, painting over the faux painting techniques (done with varied high gloss darks and metallic paints, so unlikely common neutral flat paints will adhere), massively patching the walls, likely reskimming most of the walls after the, etc. Likely $500-$1000 done myself, if I get lucky on the faux paint, to $2500-$5000 for a painter to do it, maybe more depending on how painful that the faux marble/venetian plaster covering turns out. my thinking sounding about it?

At the moment, it doesn’t matter as the bank won’t budge from the price set at recent model staged resold flips.

[no_such_reality]

The pensions, the work schedules, the lax management, the staffing levels, and the politico pandering all go hand in hand.

The pensions are just the most obvious piece that is out of whack. It’s the easiest piece to see how poorly the politicians have been at being stewards of our resources.

[no_such_reality]

BG, most politicians in most cities are being just as stupid as the ones in Vallejo.

That’s the point those of us on the reign Government in side have been making. As you say, they shouldn’t. Well, they have. And most of the others have too.

That’s the point.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=bearishgurl]
I see this as a time and money-wasting uphill battle for a city who should probably concentrate on getting (and keeping) their house in order regardless of how the court rules. If that means layoffs and RIFs, its citizens will have to get used to less services. If they can’t staff enough employees for their state and Federally mandated programs, then they will have to seek funds from the state/Federal govm’t to run these programs or send those patrons elsewhere to apply for benefits.[/quote]

Vallejo is how looks.

Bond holders eat it.

City services shredded, RIFs of 30%, 40% or 50% of staff, including police and fire. The Police department is reduced by 38% of peak staffing in 2004, the fire department reduced 30%.

Increased contributions to pensions for the remaining workers to actually pay as you go.

Concessions from unions on Pensions.

And a 1% sales tax.

That is the future. Get used to it.

[no_such_reality]

I appreciate the replies but you’re not following.

To pencil out, I first need to figure out what my input ‘get it ready’ capital will be.

It’s “pre”foreclosure. Basically, it’s a foreclosure that just hasn’t been foreclosed. It’s empty, all utilities are off. Toilets and sink traps are dry. Doors obviously have been left open as leaves are in the house.

Given the unknowns around not being able to test the HVAC, the plumbing, the electrical, etc.

How do you estimate expenses? Assume they’re all shot? Some subset are shot, best gut by looking at them?

[no_such_reality]

Econprof, you are so wrong. The denial is too deep on this issue.

[no_such_reality]

I’m tired of the fiscal cliff discussion. A trillion, $400 billion, yadda yadda, those are decade long numbers.

$400 billion over a decade is $40 billion a year equivalent.

$40 billion is one penny out of every dollar we’re spending.

Oh the drastic cuts, the blood letting, oh how can we be so cruel

All Obama extended Bush era tax cuts need to go and spending needs an across the board 20% cut.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=ctr70]25% of the top income earners in the U.S. pay 90% of the income taxes. Isn’t 90% enough??? I just can’t see why Obama wants them to pay MORE and MORE. Isn’t that enough already?
[/quote]

This does seem like an alarming statistics, doesn’t it, ctr?

But the problem here is the top is increasing their income while the bottom is stagnate, so how do we increase the bottom’s share of the tax burden when it is the top that is increasing their income?

For example, if the top 1% increase their income by 10% in the same year that the rest of the 99% grew by 0.2%, how should we increase the tax burden of the bottom?

Here’s another scenario, the top 25% holds 87% of the wealth in this country. So how can we hold the other 75% accountable for that 13% of wealth?

And when a government is trying to go after more revenue, which of the piece of pie should it go after? the 13%? or the 87%.

I don’t have the answer. But seems to me the government is just going after where the money’s at. whether that is right or wrong it is up for debate.[/quote]

You have to go after both.

The reason is really simple. If you don’t, you continue to have people demanding more more more because it’s free to them.

In the end, I only see three ways out of this for us as a country.

1. We figure out how to get the every increasing portion of our low skill population to have value added skills that qualifies them for something more than being a package picker at an major online retailer warehouse. There’s roughly 7 billion people on the planet that can do that job.

2. We institute ‘living wage’ rules and enforce them and accept the economic impacts of it and reduction in consumption.

3. We hyper-inflate our way our and accept the normalization of our standard of living with the rest of the world.

I prefer #1, I suspect we’ll get #3.

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