World Politics

[Semper Fidelis]

Who tf ,,,,,,,in your wheaties??

I guess it was all the radiation I picked up over in Japan. Sorry man. I should have used some smiles and stuff.....Hope it did not make you mad.

I hear yesterday that it was 105 here in Houston. Great weather we are having....

I guess maybe after this hurricane season we may not have to worry with Mardi Gras any longer.

Beer does smell bad but I do not spend much time smelling it except when I blast the GAS!

 

[patricknd]

I guess it was all the radiation I picked up over in Japan. Sorry man. I should have used some smiles and stuff.....Hope it did not make you mad.

I hear yesterday that it was 105 here in Houston. Great weather we are having....

I guess maybe after this hurricane season we may not have to worry with Mardi Gras any longer.

Beer does smell bad but I do not spend much time smelling it except when I blast the GAS!

I told you red.

 

[redtreviso]

In Houston they name airports after him...


""Then along came Fitzgerald, who started out as his secretary and became so much more. Short, blonde and pretty, Jennifer Ann Isobel Patteson-Knight Fitzgerald was 42 years old and divorced when Bush first met her in Washington during the tumultuous months of the Watergate scandal. He was chairman of the Republican National Committee; she worked for one of the committee’s officials.

Professionally, Bush’s move from Washington to Beijing would enhance his credentials as he clawed his way to the presidency; but personally it would discombobulate his 30-year-old marriage, prompt his wife to burn her love letters and eventually lead to her severe depression.

“It wasn’t just another woman,” said someone close to the situation, discussing the wedge that came between Bush and Barbara. “It was a woman who came to exert enormous influence over George for many, many years . . . She became in essence his other wife . . . his office wife.”


"""

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article484349.ece


"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, ummm you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Barbara Bush

 

[Anonymous]

He ought to resign right after David Vitter does.

Weiner is cooked. He'll be gone by July 1 if not before. I have not seen the dems turn their backs on one of their own this fast in... like, never.

 

[redtreviso]

Weiner is cooked. He'll be gone by July 1 if not before. I have not seen the dems turn their backs on one of their own this fast in... like, never.

funny how the family values party keeps theirs in office..

 

[rhubroma]

What you describe is a zero sum game. I don't subscribe to this way of thinking.

I didn't think you subscribed to thought, I thought. Your pithy response, is only another confirmation of this.

 

[rhubroma]

The first stimulus was simply too small. It had fairly close to the desired effect (when you compare actual measured effect with projections). These same projections also showed that a more effective stimulus would have to be about twice as big. What is lacking is the political will to see that through, so we're stuck with a too small stimulus (which nevertheless performed fairly close to expectation).

Concerning the value of the dollar. In fact, a weaker dollar can help the export industry (this is by the way also the reason why Germany benefits from the euro). Moreover, it helps tourism. How many more tourists will come to the US this year and spend money because of the weak dollar. Now, the US economy is neither based on tourism, nor on export. But it might help to balance out the foreign trade deficit a bit (also because imports are getting more expensive). Anyway, there will be sections of the economy who will welcome a weaker dollar (but admittedly, some others won't).

Same with inflation. Some people will profit from higher inflation, some won't. It's usually seen as an overall drawback, but moderate inflation, over a short time, can be used to solve some structural problems (just ask the Greek, they wish they could inflate their way out of their mess). In fact, if you really think inflation will hit soon, I'd recommend to take out a few huge fixed interest loans (30 yrs are still pretty low) and buy investments. It will be like printing money if you're correct.

But I don't think you are. Contrary to you, I see the imbalance mostly on the revenue side, not the spending side. It would help a lot to simply let the Bush tax cuts expire for the highest income brackets. It would also help to bring the estate tax rates (and exemption rates) to what it was, say, 10 years ago.

Concerning California. Most if not all of their problems stem from the one simple fact that it takes a 2/3 majority to add a tax, while it takes a simple majority to repeal a tax. California will remain in this fvcked up state until sanity returns and that particular law goes away. I assume at one point, that law was supposed to provide stability for planning purposes. But look what it did to the state. California's infrastructure is declining because there's no money to maintain it. People commuting 2 hours per day or more. Some school districts in California perform terrible. It wouldn't surprise me if the California workforce is falling behind as well.

Those are all factors in business decisions which have to do with the spending side of government, not the revenue side. Here you have the results when a government cannot spend what it should, because it is held hostage on the revenue side. It's what you get when you 'starve the beast'. Except, you're not starving 'the beast' which is supposed to be government, you starve everybody by driving businesses out of your state.

This is pretty much what Krugman thought.

 

[rhubroma]

This might be true if governments were not hemorrhaging red ink and in record debt.



We already did this with the first stimulus. The results speak for themselves.



In times like these it might be wise to apply basic principles to government continuing operations. Employee salaries are an expense. In an era where governments are essentially broke and the printing of money is only making our problems worse (see the current value of the dollar relative to other currencies and the cost of energy, for one example... take a close look at what the Chinese have done by divesting themselves of a Trillion in our debt instruments, then ask yourself "why would they do that?"). Expense management needs to be applied relative to income. Just because govt is not a business does not mean govt should not pay attention to expenses.

Govt addressing the spending side of the equation will go a long way to supporting the revenue side. When private enterprise sees govt in a current state it is smart enough to know that 1) Huge Tax increases are looming, 2) The printing of money is looming (inflationary pressures) or 3) we will go to war with our creditors. #3 won't happen, but 1 & 2 likely will and/or already have happened. None of this is good for private job creation which pays for all things public.



This is not at all tortured. It is in fact extremely simple. You may have never thought of the source of tax in these terms but it is what it is. This is not a point of disagreement. You are simply wrong.

California tax receipts are picking up due to an unexpected increase in corporate tax revenue. In fact, there is already speculation of another tech bubble bust in Cali and that is what is helping here. The personal income tax picture in Cali continues to be bleak at best. Unemployment here is well above national levels and property values are continuing to fall. Yet Gov Brown wants to continue to strangle (to use your term) the private sector. Continue with confiscatory rates of taxation so much so that neighboring states Arizona, Nevada and even Texas send delegations to California openly recruiting business to move their operations to those states as they know they have a much more favorable business climate to offer.

3 did already happen. The government has spent trillions on its delirious military campaigns in the Mideast.

It has also spent an indecent sum on saving the a$$es of a Wall Street elite, of therefore a private business class whose rapacity and greed was only seconded by their brazen unscrupulousness, and that caused infinite public damage because of their appalling excesses.

I think this is enough to demonstrate that the private sector, that the interests of the few and the mighty, have made the US democracy a complete and utter sham.

Meanwhile the conservatives like yourself are ever praising the private sector for its righteousness! and so-called self-regulating sobriety, when of course just the opposite is true, while at once calling for us all to make the necessary fiscal sacrifices, which means giving over the hard earned cash to this mendacious and thoroughly unprincipled class of charlatans, while getting in return only a ravaged public school system, overly expensive and unjust health care and a society in which the peons are called by their government to take on a world of responsibility only to be left to die with no support from the state.

Your idea, consequently, that the only role of government should be to trim expenses that would otherwise go toward supporting the collective well being, while empowering the private sector to hoodwink and defraud the masses, while driving up the profits of a few, is so vile and lacks any sense of decency and humanity as to be simply grotesque. Yet when were you shouting when the Bush administration was spending, and spending, and spending for the guys at Halliburton and Amoco?

Yet this is exactly the world you guys have produced, which has allowed America to be exploited more than any other developed country by the appetites and depredations of the private business sector. All of this has had a devastating effect, a lethal effect, on the nation's spirit, as all the evidence shows. It will be hard put to break free from this stranglehold, from the talons of private business. In our country the private sector has never had any difficulty in bringing the necessary pressure to bear and forcing the American people, and hence the American state, into total submission. The ideology of profit and privatization is to blame for the fact that for so many decades America had no philosophers, no philosophical thought, no philosophy. It's fair to say that in the last hundred years all thought has been ruthlessly suppressed by private business. And the nation has made life easy for itself under the aegis of the business mind, which has always done its thinking for it, on a proxy basis and in its own way.

The mind having been suppressed for decades, America became a land of consumers. Having become a thoroughly mindless people during decades of privatization, Scott, we are now a thoroughly consumeristic people. Having been driven out of our minds by private business, we have allowed consumerism to flourish. And it's just appalling.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

About 200-300 pages ago I posted something regarding the stimulus that could still be done today, I think with positive results. Namely, to increase SBA microloans, and the SBA Prime loan program. This could be coupled with a self-employment assistance program (SEA) for some people on unemployment who qualify. Here's how this could work:

Someone loses their job, but has a dream to work for themselves. They've tried in the past, but couldn't make it happen yet for whatever the reason. They spend the time formulating a business plan, and apply for SEA instead of unemployment. This means they won't have to look for a job (because there aren't any) and instead will start their own business. What kind of business qualifies? Tiny ones. Home businesses, food carts, landscaping, etc. SEA already exists in a few states to varying degrees. This could be coupled with the SBA prime/microloans to get these people started. For those not in the know, these are loans between $5 and $50k ($13k on average) backed to a certain degree by the federal government.

What are the odds on this person succeeding at their new business? Not great. Even with the loan. However, you have to look at our current economy and compare my plan to the current alternative. What people do now is lose their job, apply for unemployment, get it, get all the extensions, and look for work and mostly don't find anything for many months, or if they do, they usually get a job with a huge pay cut. Nearly all of the money paid out through unemployment is put back into the economy, sure, but it is also given to someone who is not a productive member of society (looking for work that isn't there, isn't productive). Even if their business fails, they'll at least put some productivity into the economy, and they'll gain valuable knowledge doing so.

Sadly, both parties, and the President have decided to cut SBA microloans and likely eliminate the prime program all together. Part of the reason is because hardly anyone was getting the loans because the banks weren't giving them. There was almost no pressure what so ever from the government to get banks to loan even $1 to anyone without 100% collateral, even on SBA backed loans. This decision by the Obama administration and both parties baffles me. One would think it would have something for both "liberals" and "conservatives" to like. And in the scope of the entire budget, especially considering a large portion of the cost would come from unemployment funds, not all that expensive. But nope, they are killing whatever is there. And as I've said about every 10 pages or so, it's because the working poor, and sole-proprietor entrepreneurs and start-up's don't have the lobbying power that so many others do in order to make something like this happen.

 

[patricknd]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...ml?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk2|68733

"I do not know how much I've saved over 10 years but I'm sure it is several million dollars -- probably in excess of $10 million," said Egerman, founder of a medical transcription company called eScription.

And what, HuffPost asked, have you done with all that cash?

"I've kept it," he said. "I have not done anything with that money."


Dal LaMagna, founder of Tweezerman, said he used his extra money to help the local economy in by adding stuff to his house in the Pacific Northwest.

"I just started creating jobs myself. I built a dance floor in my house -- which I really didn't need," LaMagna said, adding that he also put in a parking lot. "I just became a Dal LaMagna economic stimulus package in Poulsbo, Washington."


The tax cuts would have expired in January, but President Obama broke a campaign promise and struck a deal with congressional Republicans that reauthorized the cuts for two more years in exchange for one year of extended unemployment benefits, among other things. Tuesday, June 7, is the 10th anniversary of the tax cuts.

Extending them further would result in an extra $68,079 for the average member of the richest one percent of taxpayers in 2013, according to estimates by progressive advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice.

"If they are fully extended, they will cost five-and-a-half trillion dollars over the coming decade," said CTJ President Bob McIntyre on the conference call.

 

[Anonymous]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...ml?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk2|68733

"I do not know how much I've saved over 10 years but I'm sure it is several million dollars -- probably in excess of $10 million," said Egerman, founder of a medical transcription company called eScription.

And what, HuffPost asked, have you done with all that cash?

"I've kept it," he said. "I have not done anything with that money."


Dal LaMagna, founder of Tweezerman, said he used his extra money to help the local economy in by adding stuff to his house in the Pacific Northwest.

"I just started creating jobs myself. I built a dance floor in my house -- which I really didn't need," LaMagna said, adding that he also put in a parking lot. "I just became a Dal LaMagna economic stimulus package in Poulsbo, Washington."


The tax cuts would have expired in January, but President Obama broke a campaign promise and struck a deal with congressional Republicans that reauthorized the cuts for two more years in exchange for one year of extended unemployment benefits, among other things. Tuesday, June 7, is the 10th anniversary of the tax cuts.

Extending them further would result in an extra $68,079 for the average member of the richest one percent of taxpayers in 2013, according to estimates by progressive advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice.

"If they are fully extended, they will cost five-and-a-half trillion dollars over the coming decade," said CTJ President Bob McIntyre on the conference call.

Kind of begs the question who's money is it? CTJ seems to think wealth belongs to the govt.

 

[Anonymous]

About 200-300 pages ago I posted something regarding the stimulus that could still be done today, I think with positive results. Namely, to increase SBA microloans, and the SBA Prime loan program. This could be coupled with a self-employment assistance program (SEA) for some people on unemployment who qualify. Here's how this could work:

Someone loses their job, but has a dream to work for themselves. They've tried in the past, but couldn't make it happen yet for whatever the reason. They spend the time formulating a business plan, and apply for SEA instead of unemployment. This means they won't have to look for a job (because there aren't any) and instead will start their own business. What kind of business qualifies? Tiny ones. Home businesses, food carts, landscaping, etc. SEA already exists in a few states to varying degrees. This could be coupled with the SBA prime/microloans to get these people started. For those not in the know, these are loans between $5 and $50k ($13k on average) backed to a certain degree by the federal government.

What are the odds on this person succeeding at their new business? Not great. Even with the loan. However, you have to look at our current economy and compare my plan to the current alternative. What people do now is lose their job, apply for unemployment, get it, get all the extensions, and look for work and mostly don't find anything for many months, or if they do, they usually get a job with a huge pay cut. Nearly all of the money paid out through unemployment is put back into the economy, sure, but it is also given to someone who is not a productive member of society (looking for work that isn't there, isn't productive). Even if their business fails, they'll at least put some productivity into the economy, and they'll gain valuable knowledge doing so.

Sadly, both parties, and the President have decided to cut SBA microloans and likely eliminate the prime program all together. Part of the reason is because hardly anyone was getting the loans because the banks weren't giving them. There was almost no pressure what so ever from the government to get banks to loan even $1 to anyone without 100% collateral, even on SBA backed loans. This decision by the Obama administration and both parties baffles me. One would think it would have something for both "liberals" and "conservatives" to like. And in the scope of the entire budget, especially considering a large portion of the cost would come from unemployment funds, not all that expensive. But nope, they are killing whatever is there. And as I've said about every 10 pages or so, it's because the working poor, and sole-proprietor entrepreneurs and start-up's don't have the lobbying power that so many others do in order to make something like this happen.

Interesting thought. We as a country want to encourage the creation of small business and then do everything seemingly possible to discourage it.

Lending to small business with capitalization of 2 - 3 million or less is virtually non-existent. You can blame this on TARP and tight banking regs that basically force banks to look over their shoulder whenever they do lend. Banks can make more money by investing their cash in bonds (a la insurance companies) with a fracton of the risk of a typical loan portfolio. With federal regulators looking at banking so closely who can blame them?

 

[Anonymous]

3 did already happen. The government has spent trillions on its delirious military campaigns in the Mideast.

It has also spent an indecent sum on saving the a$$es of a Wall Street elite, of therefore a private business class whose rapacity and greed was only seconded by their brazen unscrupulousness, and that caused infinite public damage because of their appalling excesses.

I think this is enough to demonstrate that the private sector, that the interests of the few and the mighty, have made the US democracy a complete and utter sham.

Meanwhile the conservatives like yourself are ever praising the private sector for its righteousness! and so-called self-regulating sobriety, when of course just the opposite is true, while at once calling for us all to make the necessary fiscal sacrifices, which means giving over the hard earned cash to this mendacious and thoroughly unprincipled class of charlatans, while getting in return only a ravaged public school system, overly expensive and unjust health care and a society in which the peons are called by their government to take on a world of responsibility only to be left to die with no support from the state.

Your idea, consequently, that the only role of government should be to trim expenses that would otherwise go toward supporting the collective well being, while empowering the private sector to hoodwink and defraud the masses, while driving up the profits of a few, is so vile and lacks any sense of decency and humanity as to be simply grotesque. Yet when were you shouting when the Bush administration was spending, and spending, and spending for the guys at Halliburton and Amoco?

Yet this is exactly the world you guys have produced, which has allowed America to be exploited more than any other developed country by the appetites and depredations of the private business sector. All of this has had a devastating effect, a lethal effect, on the nation's spirit, as all the evidence shows. It will be hard put to break free from this stranglehold, from the talons of private business. In our country the private sector has never had any difficulty in bringing the necessary pressure to bear and forcing the American people, and hence the American state, into total submission. The ideology of profit and privatization is to blame for the fact that for so many decades America had no philosophers, no philosophical thought, no philosophy. It's fair to say that in the last hundred years all thought has been ruthlessly suppressed by private business. And the nation has made life easy for itself under the aegis of the business mind, which has always done its thinking for it, on a proxy basis and in its own way.

The mind having been suppressed for decades, America became a land of consumers. Having become a thoroughly mindless people during decades of privatization, Scott, we are now a thoroughly consumeristic people. Having been driven out of our minds by private business, we have allowed consumerism to flourish. And it's just appalling.

3 did already happen. The government has spent trillions on its delirious military campaigns in the Mideast.

No, we have not gone to war with a major creditor nation.

The rest of your post you have written several times.

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't think you subscribed to thought, I thought. Your pithy response, is only another confirmation of this.

You thought wrong.

 

[Cobblestones]

How did I know you were going to stake this position?? This is Krugmanomics. Pure fallacy to say a nearly 1 Trillion dollar stimulus was 'simply too small.'



I am aware of the export angle but our economy is much more heavily weighted to imports, rightly or wrongly. Also, tourism dollars are nice but the economic numbers that came out in May are largely being explained by the skyrocketing fuel prices. The value of the dollar plays a huge part in this. so much so that all of Western Europe would have to drop some serious coin here to make up for it.



I'm sure the long term solution to our debt problem is going to include tax increases. I don't think it's smart, but I think it will happen. As to Estate Tax... I think, other than the mis-use of eminent domain, is the most vile form of taxation there is. I think the death tax is an appropriate title. So, a $600,000 exemption or would you prefer $1,000,000? The top marginal rate 10 years ago was 55%. On what planet is that fair particularly considering the estate has been amassed with after tax monies?

Just because Warren Buffet does not want to gift his estate to his kids does not mean that Joe Public's kids should have to sell his business because they can't afford to pay the taxes to continue running it.

And BTW, what you advocate vis a vis estate tax roll-back would be really good for my business.

You just don't know what's happening in Cali. those two paragraphs at the end of you post are just wrong.

We are the worst state to do business in and have been for years.

http://chiefexecutive.net/best-worst-states-for-business

California's 2011 Business Tax Climate Ranks 49th
California's Top Individual Income Tax Rate Is Third-Highest in the Nation
California's Corporate Income Tax Rate is the Highest in the West
California's Sales Tax Rate Is Highest in the Nation
Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures: California is a Donor State

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/topic/15.html

Corporate tax revenue in Cali is the only bright spot for the state. It was originally estimated to be approximately 9% of the state's total revenue. Personal income tax is projected to be over 41% of total revenue. We don't need to increase taxes, we need to get people back to work.

You get your talking points from the hacks at taxfoundation? :facepalm:

Yes, stimulus was a fvcking big number. But just because it was a fvcking big number is no argument that it was big enough. Every economic model prediction showed it was too small, because the hole we were in was an even bigger fvcking number. So there.

I don't see an estate tax as double tax. For the person who inherited it is a new gain. That person has never been taxed on that gain. Why should inheritance be exempt from tax, when every other sort of income and gain is taxed? There's an inheritance tax in virtually every country, so the planet where an inheritance tax is considered fair would be earth.

Yes energy prices (mostly imported energy) go up, which is bad for some businesses, good for others. We're hard hit by rising oil prices because we haven't made the necessary changes which Carter advocated.

So you're saying the inability to raise taxes in California has nothing to do with the current situation? I'm interested to hear that argument.

 

[rhubroma]

No, we have not gone to war with a major creditor nation.

The rest of your post you have written several times.

Excuse me, I thought you meant gone to war on credit.

I know, but it just begs to be repeated, even if no one can stand to hear it more than myself.

 

[rhubroma]

You thought wrong.

Well I'm glad we thought that one through.

 

[Cobblestones]

Let me dig up a page from 1.5 years ago, where we had the same discussion about the stimulus. I said it was too small and you said it was too big and inflation >5% and even hyperinflation will result. I promised you to dig it up when the time comes.

 

[patricknd]

Cobbles, I love you man but you are probably wrong on the inflation scenario, very wrong on spending another 2 trillion in "stimulus" with no effect on inflation (gotta pay the borrowed money back or declare war on our creditors) and completely wrong on this "tax reduction for the rich". I posted the actual tax revenue numbers from the IRS somewhere (i think in this thread). The "rich" pay a shitload more in taxes than the non-rich as measured by percentage of income and real dollars. Any tax cut or increase will effect "the rich" simply because they pay the vast majority of the taxes. Please don't quote Warren Buffet's comments on how his secretary pays more taxes than he does because if that is true he should be ashamed of himself and if it's not true then he should be ashamed of himeself. Either way a very poor example and certainly not typical.

I reckon we will not agree on this but I appreciate the joust without name calling. Encouraging, I'd say.

this was just a few posts down stream from cobblestone's link. i thought the bolded part interesting compared to the last few hundred pages.

 

[Anonymous]

You get your talking points from the hacks at taxfoundation? :facepalm:

Yes, stimulus was a fvcking big number. But just because it was a fvcking big number is no argument that it was big enough. Every economic model prediction showed it was too small, because the hole we were in was an even bigger fvcking number. So there.

I don't see an estate tax as double tax. For the person who inherited it is a new gain. That person has never been taxed on that gain. Why should inheritance be exempt from tax, when every other sort of income and gain is taxed? There's an inheritance tax in virtually every country, so the planet where an inheritance tax is considered fair would be earth.

Yes energy prices (mostly imported energy) go up, which is bad for some businesses, good for others. We're hard hit by rising oil prices because we haven't made the necessary changes which Carter advocated.

So you're saying the inability to raise taxes in California has nothing to do with the current situation? I'm interested to hear that argument.

So you're saying the inability to raise taxes in California has nothing to do with the current situation? I'm interested to hear that argument

The super majority needed to raise taxes is the only thing keeping Cali from slipping into the ocean (economically speaking). I can't even imagine the destruction to this economy if every time this state got into some financial pickle the corrupt in Sacto were able raise taxes with 50% +1.

If you look at the 2011/2012 budget and expected revenues, over 40% is expected to come from income tax... that is with a 12% unemployment rate (closer to 17% if under-employed are included). Raising taxes is not the answer. The answer is to get 7 or 8 % of those unemployed back to work. How do we do that? Not with things like AB32 (cap & trade). We can't tax our way out of this no matter how much some might like to.

Yes energy prices (mostly imported energy) go up, which is bad for some businesses, good for others. We're hard hit by rising oil prices because we haven't made the necessary changes which Carter advocated.

Like it or not, oil is the key to our economy. Why we don't utilize our own reserves is a mystery to me. Why we don't utilize our own energy while pioneering affordable alternative energy sources is also a mystery to me. Why we continue to allow ourselves to be dependent upon nations that are not really our allies is a mystery to me. Lots of mysteries here.

I don't see an estate tax as double tax.

Again, just because you don't see it does not mean it's not. To follow your logic... when my Dad bought a POS car for me when I was old enough to drive I suppose I should have been taxed on it. Same when he gifted money for me to go to college (and on and on and on). Somehow when he dies it's now a gain? Bull****. It's insidious.

You get your talking points from the hacks at taxfoundation? :facepalm:

This is petty. The facts are what they are. They are either true or untrue. You dismiss the content due to the source? Your perogative.

Business leaving California in record numbers

http://californiabusiness.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/business-leaving-california-in-record-numbers-a-message-to-carb-and-ab-32-implementation-from-sclc/

List Names 100 Companies Leaving California

http://jan.ocregister.com/2010/02/24/list-names-100-companies-leaving-california/31805/


Why are Companies Leaving California?


http://governmentinexile.typepad.com/government_in_exile/2010/10/why-are-companies-leaving-california.html

Companies Fleeing California For Utah Over Confiscatory Tax Rate

http://nevadanewsandviews.com/2010/08/25/companies-fleeing-california-for-utah-over-confiscatory-tax-rate/

The Business Relocation coach

http://thebusinessrelocationcoach.blogspot.com/

California delegation coming to Austin to study Texas business climate

http://www.statesman.com/business/california-delegation-coming-to-austin-to-study-texas-1378425.html

Yes, stimulus was a fvcking big number. But just because it was a fvcking big number is no argument that it was big enough. Every economic model prediction showed it was too small, because the hole we were in was an even bigger fvcking number. So there.

A trillion dollars, one thousand billion, one million million, two million million... eff it. Who cares.

 

[Anonymous]

Let me dig up a page from 1.5 years ago, where we had the same discussion about the stimulus. I said it was too small and you said it was too big and inflation >5% and even hyperinflation will result. I promised you to dig it up when the time comes.

I'm not so sure this won't still happen.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

But, hey, I'm glad to be wrong on this (for now). You do know the Chinese flushed a ton of US debt they held, right? Why do you suppose they did this, particularly with long term Treasury notes?

Answer? Among other things they are betting on a significant rise in US inflation.

 

[rhubroma]

You guys remind me of a parody of the economist, who incessantly pounds away at his calculator trying to make the numbers work out, but then in a fit of rage shouts "Mother Fùcker! Mother Fùcker! Mother Fùcker!"

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, that is funny. Well played, Rhub.

 

[Cobblestones]

WSJ with it's liberal bias begs to differ.

California is subject to sharp swings in its fortunes, partly because of the volatile revenue streams of income and sales tax on which it has depended since its voters imposed a limit on property taxes in 1978.

Voice of America cites crumbling infrastructure and housing slump as biggest problems.

And by the way, not to burst your bubble, but business indices are practically uncorrelated with actual economic development.

 

[Anonymous]

WSJ with it's liberal bias begs to differ.



Voice of America cites crumbling infrastructure and housing slump as biggest problems.

And by the way, not to burst your bubble, but business indices are practically uncorrelated with actual economic development.

Thank God the sun shines here or just think what the economic climate might look like. or conversely, imagine what California ecomnomics would look like if we had even decent business indicies?

Prop 13. The holy grail. Property Tax based on acquisition value versus real value. Can you even imagine what property tax revenue would have plunged to from a high in 2006 to now? Our problems in Cali would be worse.

Lots of studies out there. Many show property tax revenue based on acquisition price to be a very stable revenue source that, since it's inception in the late seventies has provided an annual increase in revenue nearing 8% per annum.

Our boom/bust economy has many driving factors. The State is heavily dependent upon tech and construction. Those industries are hyper sensitive to swings. We don't have much in the way of other manufacturing these days. Environmental concerns shut most of these business out of Cali.

Most folks who would like to see prop 13 go away argue there to be huge "inequities" in property taxes. They point to someone who purchased their home in the 1960's who has a very low acquisition basis and compare it with someone who bought a home more recently in the same neighborhood with a much higher basis. What they want, of course, is for the folks who have been living in their home for 50 years to pay a significantly higher rate so the govt hacks in Sacramento can continue to plunder the public booty. Make the old folks pay more. Sounds good.