The thrill of the the Newt Opera hits the pause button after February 4 as we must wait until the March Super Tuesday to enjoy the Romney bashing again. By then, we will have two more jobs numbers and three more measures of the housing market for the Spring selling. The big wind that will shape the year is blowing foulweather from the East. The situation in Europe faces a climax in Greece in March, and speaking to Landon Thomas, NYT, and Jack Ewing, IHT, there does not appear an acceptable remedy. The ECB bought Greek bonds at 70-75 cents on the Euro, and it wants all its money back. Hedge funds and banks bought Greek bonds at 40 cents on the Euro, and it wants the same as everyone else gets in the managed failure, which could mean 50 cents. Meanwhile, the negotiators argue that the hedgies are "free riders"and must take a loss. Now you see how funny this will get, as everyone who bought Greek bonds weeks ago is trying to dump them at 30 cents on the dollar or less. And the Obama administration is counting on a recovery in 2012. Also, Gordon Chang and Patrick Chovanec and Joe Sternberg convincingly present the case that the China economy is sagging with capitol flight as the property bubble deflates. Again, the Obama team is counting on China and Europe to stabilize? Can the US recover while the Greek-fuelled EU (below, happy days ever again in Athens?) and Asia stagnate? Unknown.
Regarding the U.S. naval fleet to Manila post, above, here's yet another very fertile place to attack Obama for the GOP candidate(s). 4 years ago, he promised to reduce America's military presence, yet we are more involved than ever. Get down and dirty with the numbers as far as death tolls, mention Somalia, the blockade of Iran, etc. This would be directed at Obama's progressive base and would be akin to showing a married man pictures of his wife in bed with another man. My sense is that the "progressives" who back Obama know what's going on but are more or less in denial about what a hypocrit Obama is. Keep on hammering away at this ... I think the GOP candidate could actually find some room to the left of Obama on foreign policy, if he used a bit of resourcefullness, which is a big IF especially in the case of Newt Mittney.
LF
As for me, I need no further convincing. For 8 years, I heard nothing but Bush this, Bush that, Bush the great Hitler, Bush's war machine, Bush's raining fire down on the world. And yet when Obama does all the exact same things, you can not only hear the crickets chirping, you could hear them backing into a wet sponge.
And Mr. Independent, Mr. Fair-minded Independent John Avlon, who one would expect to be one of the few voices drowning out the crickets ... well.... if he's said anything on point, I missed it.
Once again with feeling
Greece needs to default. Issue new bonds for a total of 40% of estimated GDP pro rata to the old holders. ECB eats their bad credit decision. Set up an interim credit facility (Germany) to get Greece through its fiscal restructuring (ie a balanced budget). Let each nation bail out its banks as necessary. This should have been done 2 years ago.
Continuing the farce only makes it worse because it allows those nations that have gotten sloppy to lurch along with the fantasy that things will all work out. Two years of potential fixing have been wasted on delusion.
The threat to the euro is not default; it is the perpetuation of this stupidity.
Andrew Malcolm
Political News & Commentary
http://news.investors.com/Article/599002/201201260818/obama-white
Andrew Malcolm
Political News & Commentary
http://news.investors.com/Article/599002/201201260818/obama-white-house-staff-back-taxes.htm
36 Obama aides owe $833,000 in back taxes
A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama's executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven't paid any share, let alone their fair share.
Previous reports have shown how well-paid Obama's White House staff is, with 457 aides pulling down more than $37 million last year. That's up seven workers and nearly $4 million from the Bush administration's last year.
Nearly one-third of Obama's aides make more than $100,000 with 21 being paid the top White House salary of $172,200, each.
The IRS' 2010 delinquent tax revelations come as part of a required annual agency report on federal employees' tax compliance. Turns out, an awful lot of folks being paid by taxpayers are not paying their own income taxes.
The report finds that thousands of federal employees owe the country more than $3.4 billion in back taxes. That's up 3% in the past year.
That scale of delinquency could annoy voters, hard-pressed by their own costs, fears and stubbornly high unemployment despite Joe Biden's many promises.
The tax offenders include employees of the U.S. Senate who help write the laws imposed on everyone else. They owe $2.1 million. Workers in the House of Representatives owe $8.5 million, Department of Education employees owe $4.3 million and over at Homeland Security, 4,697 workers owe about $37 million. Active duty military members owe more than $100 million.
The Treasury Department, where Obama nominee Tim Geithner had to pay up $42,000 in his own back taxes before being confirmed as secretary, has 1,181 other employees with delinquent taxes totaling $9.3 million.
As usual, the Postal Service, with more than 600,000 workers, has the most offenders (25,640), who also owe the most -- almost $270 million. Veterans Affairs has 11,659 workers owing the IRS $151 million while the Energy Department that was so quick to dish out more than $500 million to the Solyndra folks has 322 employees owing $5 million.
The country's chief law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, has 2,069 employees who are nearly $17 million behind in taxes. Like Operation Fast and Furious, Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently missed them too.
As with ordinary people, the IRS attempts to negotiate back-tax payment plans with all delinquents, whose names cannot be released. But according to current federal law, the only federal employees who can be fired for not paying taxes are IRS workers.
Interesting article in yesterday's Journal about the ECB's Long-Term Restructuring Operation (LTRO). Long story short, they loan out hundreds of billions of Euros at 1%, the banks borrow the money and use it to buy debt of their own countries, which in turn delays the day when those countries default on their obligations to the ECB. If it sounds like a shell game, that's because it is.
The one thing the article doesn't explain, as far as I could see, was where these hundreds of billions in Euros came from in the first place. I suspect that there was no wealth either deposited or created to back them - or precious little. What is the capitalization requirement for the ECB itself? Anyone here know?
This is a classic example of simply "running the printing presses" as far as I can tell. And it can't help but have a big inflationary effect before long. In fact, I think I know now why the gold market has been performing so nicely since Thanksgiving.
I also don't see where the projected 2.5% GDP figure comes from for 2012 for the U.S.
I think I know now why the gold market has been performing so nicely since Thanksgiving.
One reason, of course, is FMOC's latest statement of keeping interest rates low.
Another reason, which will become more important in the future, is India and China buying Iranian oil with gold.
The FOMC's promise to keep interest rates low has definitely buoyed up the gold market over the last 24 hours or so, and it was a nice little move. But that accounts for only about $50 of the $200 it's put back over the last two months. Gold has been a puzzle for me because it seems like it keeps on doing these "Polar Shifts" (a la Clive Cussler) back and forth between positive and negative correlation with the Dow.
As someone said today on CNBC: If Russia starts buying gold, he wouldn't be surprised if that report caused gold to go up $100 in one day. [As you know China & India are already big purchasers].
Cramer on his own program on CNBC has always maintained that gold used to be 5% of the professionals' investment portfolios. Now it's a lot less, so he expects gold to keep rising until the 5% is reached. This seems very sound and a good reason for it climbing slowly. He also says that gold -- bullion, coins, GLD or an equivalent ETF -- should be 10-20% of an individual's portfolio. This, too, I believe, has pushed up the price because he has a big following.
Women in India, who apparently have twice the amt of all gold reserves in the US, also are a reason for gold to go up. [Sorry, no source for this]. When the economy in India is good, women start buying gold. Also a few years ago, China allowed its citizens to buy gold -- which makes a lot more sense than buying Chinese real estate.
On the other hand, the irony of gold is that when the stock market goes down severely, the hedge funds usually sell gold to cover other bets because they're so highly leveraged. Gold is their one sure investment which they have a profit in. But by hedge funds selling gold in huge quantities on down days, they force the price down. So gold sometimes goes down when the mkt goes down, which is counter-intuitive. In other words, gold isn't correlated to the Dow. It's correlated to what the hedge funds are forced to do by their own investment strategies. However, hedge funds -- I'm led to believe -- can't control the gold market over time because it's too big.
am told that the US is the Saudi Arabia of gold. we swim in it. Russia and China buying gold is also regarded aggression if the aim is to damage the dollar. see Rickard's "Currency Wars"
Saturday 21 January 935P Eastern Time: James Rickards, Currency Wars, I of II
I heard the war games strategy but probably should listen again. Once is never enough since you cover so many facts. The $40k per ounce price certainly got my attention.
I remember several years ago, a Canadian company wanted to mine for gold just outside of Yellowstone. It's lobbyist was a big name, 80 year old+ politician. Since gold mining uses toxic chemicals, the company wanted to build a slurry pool to contain them. However, if the pool were breached it would've spilled into the park. The people in the area were able to defeat it, because it's in an earthquake zone.
The quote from one of the residents who fought the goldmine: It doesn't pay for us to ruin our land just so some drug dealer in New York can wear a big gold chain around his neck.
"the only federal employees who can be fired for not paying taxes are IRS workers."
Great article. Interesting, isn't it, that the government employees are so delinquent? About every 15 year someone in the executive or congress gets a bee somewhere sensitive and starts demanding that the federal government not do business with "tax cheats." There's a lot of dust and noise, and eventually the helpful suggester realizes that most of the offenders are on all manner of payment programs to pay their taxes in ways that make sense for everyone. For example, if the feds stop contracting with tax cheats, 1) the government doesn't get the goods or services it needs; and 2) the companies' income goes down so that they can't pay their taxes at the rate they had been. That's after the suggester has discoved that requiring the government to do business only with the pure creates an administrative nightmare because since the 70s when tax returns ceased to be public documents IRS can't reveal anyone's tax status to anyone other than the owner of that tax ID. At one point, they couldn't even say, "We have no problem with x" for fear of violating the law. I think the law might have been amended to allow them to say that much. Not to mention that delaying contract awards for the blessing of the IRS was inconsionable. It threatened mission function, especially in DoD. Eventually the furor dies down and it's back to business as usual.
Concerning the observation about IRS employees, until about 10 years ago IRS employees were required to file by April 15 and to pay their taxes in full. They couldn't even get the filing extensions that ordinary Americans were freely granted without question. But lawmakers and staff never have been held to the same standard of prompt and full payment that IRS employees are.
Here's the conclusion to the New World Mine dispute:
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2010/06/land-deal-closes-book-new-world-mine-proposed-yellowstone-national-parks-doorstep6045
Land Deal Closes The Book On the New World Mine Proposed on Yellowstone National Park's Doorstep
Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on June 15, 2010 - 3:54pm
The purchase of 772 acres has brought to an end the long saga of a "New World Mine" proposed to be built in the high country near Cooke City, Montana, just beyond Yellowstone National Park's northeast entrance. Greater Yellowstone Coalition photo, NPS map.
Fourteen years after the Clinton White House stepped in to halt a gold mine from being built on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park, a final piece of the settlement puzzle has been slid into place with the purchase of nearly 800 acres of private lands.
The announcement Tuesday that the Trust for Public Land and the U.S. Forest Service had closed on the purchase of 772 acres of land, and its underlying mineral rights, roughly 4 miles beyond the park's northeast entrance was applauded by Montana politicians and conservationists who in the 1990s worried that mining would send mineral wastes and chemicals into the park via Soda Butte Creek.
“This is Montana's outdoor heritage as well as creating good paying jobs," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I worked hard to find federal funding for this land because Yellowstone National Park and the Yellowstone River bring in millions in tourist dollars to Montana every single year -- and we can't afford to compromise that. Yellowstone is our nation's first national park and a truly a national treasure. I believe we've got to leave this place better than when we found it, and that means standing up for places like Yellowstone."
The mine proposed by Crown Butte Mines, a Canadian concern, was called the New World Mine for its location in the New World Mining District that dates to 1864 when prospectors started exploring the area. Concerns over how renewed operations might bring historic, as well as new, wastes into Yellowstone led to concerted efforts to halt the project, and even the United Nations took a stand by pointing to the proposed mine as the reason for placing Yellowstone on its list of “In Danger” World Heritage Sites.
At one point President Clinton visited the area to talk to activists.
In 1996, a solution was announced. In return for $65 million in federal land and other assets, Crown Butte abandoned its plans for the mountains above Cooke City, Montana, and created a $22.5 million fund to clean up the mess that had been left behind by past mining operations.
But the proposed settlement was crafted without the input of Margaret Reeb, a retired schoolteacher from Livingston, Montana, who owned most of the mineral rights in the area. While she refused to sell those rights to the government, she eventually entered into an agreement guaranteeing her claims would not be mined.
When Ms. Reeb passed away in 2005, her estate passed on to her nephews, Mike and Randy Holland. They worked with the Trust for Public Lands to bring all of their aunt’s mining claims into public ownership as originally contemplated in the 1996 agreement. TPL bought the claims over a two-year period -- last year the Hollands sold 696 acres, and now they've sold the final 772 acres -- and and then sold to the U.S. government for inclusion in the Gallatin and Custer National Forests.
A total of $8 million was secured for the two-year purchase from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the primary funding source for land acquisitions by the U.S. government. The appraised value for all 1,468 acres of the mining claims was $9 million.
Mary Erickson, Forest Supervisor for the Gallatin and Custer National Forests, said the acquisition of these critical private lands will help conserve watersheds and Yellowstone cutthroat trout, key habitat for grizzly bear, elk and moose and other species, provide public access and recreation opportunities near Cooke City, and offer a viable option to resale and development.
"This is a wonderful day for Yellowstone and the millions of people who cherish it," said Greater Yellowstone Coalition Executive Director Mike Clark, who led the successful fight against the proposed New World Mine as GYC's director in the mid-1990s. “After more than two decades of tireless efforts by hundreds of dedicated people, TPL has done an outstanding job of pushing the ball across the goal line. This deal finally closes the book on one of the greatest threats to the integrity of one of the world's most beloved parks."
As Alex Diekmann, a Senior Project Manager for TPL, put it: “Putting the Reeb claims back into public ownership is a big win for everyone. Not only does it guarantee that a mine will never be built up there, but it also ensures that extraordinary scenery and critical wildlife habitat for grizzly bear, elk and other species will not be spoiled by inappropriate backcountry development. I am thankful for the broad support this project received from the Beartooth Alliance, Park County Commissioners, and a host of hikers, hunters, anglers and others.”
Anybody else getting the virus warning before they hit JB's site?
me too. "Reported Attack Site"
The warning is being issued by Mozilla rather than Norton.
At this point I suspect a malicious report
Me three. If you read the details on the Mozilla warning page it says that the site has not downloaded anything malicious within the last 90 days, so JB probably just has to go get his name off the list. Unfortunately Mozilla seems to treat each thread as its own separate page that you have to whitelist, not sure about this yet.
I rather hope JB is able to discover the source of this slander.
Increasingly commentators are talking about the chances the Democrats will retake the House this year. Why? Because those delicates and weak-minded souls who call themselves "independents" are offended by the interminable Republican Red Meat Road Show featuring a bunch of cannibalistic clowns. They figure even Obama is better than what's on offer in the road show.
Will no one rid us of both the poseurs and the clowns?
If that premise is true why did the Republicans win in a landslide comparing Obama to Hitler, among many other characterizations . . . the electorate is shifting. They watch "snooki," and adult cartoons on FX, and all the rest . . .
I'll be the second to suggest we need a new electorate - they're ignorant, lazy, self-absorbed, and too few actually own property, as opposed to debt. Harry Reasoner was the first.
Increasingly, we do have a new electorate, as the demographers tell us; and even though they will never vote Republican, with former GOP stronghold California serving as Exhibit A of what I mean, the Stupid Party never ceases to sing the praises of immigration.
As Brecht would put it, the government has dissolved the people and elected another.
Here's a set of circumstances that either proves or disproves your point, not sure which. Jerry Brown won the governorship by a wide margin last November. Polls have shown that people in California are opposed to the high-speed rail system by a margin of 2-1 or more. Jerry Brown is a big champion of the high-speed rail system. So this is a case where the electorate got their man elected and still ended up not having their will done. I like to think in a democracy that at least some of the people will be happy some of the time, even if it's not always me.
"So this is a case where the electorate got their man elected and still ended up not having their will done."
That's the norm, not the exception.
So, why do people keep thinking Democracy is so wonderful?
It's better than any other governing method out there.
The example that you cite buttresses my contention. How to agree on the common good where there is no clear-cut majority?
An ethically diverse society is a fragmented society, one in which the affluent retreat to gated communities while the less fortunate rely on lethal finials. Linguistic and racial differences divide its inhabitants and leave them vulnerable to manipulation by corporate and political elites.
For proponents of Third World immigration and multiculturalism, this is a feature, not a bug.
Is democracy the best system for Haiti, which has a literacy rate of ten percent?