Friday, September 10, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 10, 2010


There's could be something to this advice!

Just sayin'...!
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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/09/09/obamas_tax_cuts_reveal_ignorance_of_past_mistakes_98660.html

Eager to revive an economy burdened by too much government spending, too much regulatory and tax uncertainty, and a weak, unstable dollar that makes job-creating investment a distant object, President Obama has announced an economic plan in favor of tax...subsidies dressed up as cuts...

[Everyone] should be able to easily see the first obvious problem with the cuts proposed, and it's related to what occurred with Cash for Clunkers, along with the more recent tax breaks to stimulate home buying.

Governments can't create economic growth, but when it comes to car and home-buying incentives, they can surely reschedule purchases of both.

The problem, as became evident once the auto and property purchase incentives expired, was that sales of both declined in concert with the end of the tax break.

* WHICH BRINGS US TO BARAK OBAMA'S LATEST BRAIN STORM:

[I]n offering a one-year "window" through 2011 for businesses to write off plant and equipment purchases...

* REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE PLANT AND EQUIPMENT PURCHASES ARE WISE OR WASTEFUL... (*SIGH*)

...the Obama administration may be able to [artificially] increase both in the near term.

* AT THE PRICE OF EVER INCREASING DEBT. AFTER ALL, AREN'T THE DEMS THE ONES WHO ALWAYS INSIST TAX CUTS MUST BE "PAID" FOR...???

Markets, however, discount what's ahead as opposed to the present, which means they won't be fooled by earnings that will be stolen from the future both for those who buy, and those purchased from.

(*SIGH*) YOU'RE GETTING THIS, RIGHT? YOU FOLKS UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT OBAMA AND THE DEMS ARE PROPOSING IS TO "PAY" PRESENT DAY PETER AT THE COST OF ROBBING FUTURE PAUL! (TALK ABOUT FRIGG'N VOODOO ECONOMICS!)

And while it would be similarly foolish if the Obama administration were to offer tax breaks for hiring (successful businesses as a rule try to get by with the least number of workers as possible, not to mention that the artificial tax break might drive up the cost of labor for other struggling businesses)..., the [disconnect] when it comes to increased investment in plant and equipment is that it has the potential to draw limited capital away from spending on human capital.

In short, equipment-buying incentives will be stimulated in concert with depressed hiring.

Also not addressed by the Administration is the simple truth at present that finance for business expansion is relatively cheap. If there's no incentive to grow during a period of low-cost loans, it seems folly to presume that a one-year tax incentive would accomplish very much.

It also remains the case that expansion is a non-starter for most businesses owing to the regulatory, tax and dollar uncertainty mentioned above.

Sadly, the reality of Obama's tax plan gets worse from here.

Most problematic (assuming companies buy what they don't necessarily need) will be its impact on other, younger businesses in need of capital to grow. Indeed, the often unseen negative that results from high taxes on dividends (set to rise to 39.6% in 2011) is that they create incentives among businesses to retain earnings rather than give them back to investors.

* AND BY "INVESTORS," WE'RE NOT TALKING SIMPLY THE RICH; WE'RE TALKING EVERYONE IN AMERICA WHO HAS A PENSION OR 401K INVESTED! WE'RE TALKING TEACHERS UNIONS AND POLICE UNIONS AS WELL AS CHARITABLE ENDOWMENTS. FOR MOST OF US, THE WORD "INVESTMENT" IS SYNONYMOUS WITH THE WORD "SAVINGS!"

[I]f Obama's tax plan is passed...non-economic investment will on the margin be subsidized by Washington tax mischief.

* MEANING SUBSIDIZED BY US - THE TAXPAYERS!

September 10, 2010 at 12:35 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-09-10-immigration10_ST_N.htm

The Obama administration is changing the federal immigration enforcement strategy in ways that reduce the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants...

* ILLEGAL ALIENS. NOT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. IMMIGRATION DESCRIBES A LEGAL PROCESS, THUS "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT" IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS.

A record backlog of deportation cases has forced immigrants to wait an average 459 days for their hearings...

* CHANGE THE LAW SO THAT THESE "HEARINGS" ARE FAST-TRACKED - PERFUNCTORY.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton ordered agency officials on Aug. 20 to begin dismissing deportation cases against people who haven't committed serious crimes and have credible immigration applications pending.

* TWO POINTS: 1) IT'S NOT SOLELY ABOUT "PUNISHING" CRIMES THAT HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE; IT'S ABOUT PREVENTING CRIMES THAT MAY TAKE PLACE! ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE NO RIGHT TO "THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT" IN THIS REGARD. 2) HOW CAN ANYONE ACTIVELY VIOLATING FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAW POSSIBLY HAVE A "CREDIBLE" IMMIGRATION APPLICATION PENDING...???

A proposed directive from Morton posted on ICE's website for public comment last month would generally prohibit police from using misdemeanor traffic stops to send people to ICE. Traffic stops have led to increased deportations in recent years, according to Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank whose research supports tighter enforcement.

* AGAIN... A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT BY THE OBAMA ADMINSTRATION TO CIRCUMVENT EXISTING FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAW.

A draft memo from ICE's sister agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, to Morton discussed ways the administration could adjust regulations so certain groups, such as college students and the spouses of military personnel, could legalize their status or at least avoid deportation if Congress doesn't pass comprehensive immigration reform. USCIS rules on applications for visas, work permits and citizenship. USCIS spokesman Christopher Bentley said the memo was intended to stimulate brainstorming on how to legalize immigrants if new laws aren't passed.

* IF THIS ISN'T A SMOKING GUN... (*SHRUG*)

* SERIOUSLY... THE RULE OF LAW MEANS NOTHING TO OBAMA.

ICE is "thumbing its nose at the law," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee.

* IN THE INTERESTS OF FULL DISCLOSURE --

Morton said in an interview that the new strategy is smarter, not softer, enforcement. At a time when more than 10 million people are in the country illegally, record sums are spent on enforcement and the federal budget faces huge deficits, it makes sense to target people who pose the biggest threat to public safety or national security, he said.

"Congress provides enough money to deport a little less than 400,000 people," Morton said. "My perspective is those 400,000 people shouldn't be the first 400,000 people in the door but rather 400,000 people who reflect some considered government enforcement policy based on a rational set of objectives and priorities."

ICE statistics show that deportations have increased dramatically from 189,000 in 2001 to 387,000 in 2009. Much of the increase results from deportations of people who haven't committed serious crimes, according to TRAC.

This year, however, that trend took a sharp turn, according to an Aug. 12 TRAC report.

The number of criminal immigrants removed by ICE "climbed to an all-time high," the report said. In fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1, "The removal pace of criminal aliens ... is fully 60% higher than in the last year of the Bush administration, and at least a third (37%) higher than in the first year of the Obama administration."

September 10, 2010 at 12:55 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41953.html

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) awarded three scholarships from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to his stepdaughter and wife’s niece between 2003 and 2005, according to records from the nonprofit group.

* OPEN ENDED JOKE: "WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS AND A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE?"

* GIVE UP? (ME TOO!)

Bishop is the second Democrat found to have funneled CBC Foundation scholarship funds to relatives... Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) recently paid back $31,000 to the foundation for scholarships that she improperly awarded to various relatives and children of a top staffer.

Bishop, though, also appears to have favored family members with CBC scholarships. In 2003, Emmaundia Whitaker, the niece of Vivian Creighton Bishop, who is Bishop’s wife, was awarded an education scholarship. She was also given a similar award in 2005. And in 2003, Aayesha Owens Reese, the congressman’s stepdaughter, was granted an education scholarship as well.

Bishop was also caught up in a scandal in 2009 when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began a probe into whether a youth program operated by Muscogee County Marshal’s Office improperly spent federal funds after it hired Bishop's stepdaughter and her husband. Bishop had earmarked more than $190,000 for that youth program.

Reese and her husband, Stephen, were paid more than $14,000 by that program, although they lived in the Atlanta area, more than 100 miles from Columbus, where the program operated.

September 10, 2010 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960004575482091768513872.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_health

U.S. Department of Agriculture experts found growing sanitary problems including bugs and overflowing trash earlier this year on the Iowa farm at the center of the national egg recall, but didn't notify health authorities, according to government documents and officials.

* FIRE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. SEND A MESSAGE.

The USDA was the only federal body with a regular presence at Wright, but it says it wasn't responsible for safety.

* AGAIN... FIRE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. SEND A MESSAGE.

The Food and Drug Administration, which has overall responsibility for egg safety but didn't inspect the Wright facility until this August, says it never heard from the USDA about problems such as dirt and mold. The two agencies have a formal understanding about the USDA giving the FDA notice over sanitary issues, but the USDA declined to give details.

* ONE... MORE... TIME... FIRE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE.

The USDA said it didn't give notice because "the conditions at the egg plant packing facilities were routine."

* HOUSTON... WE HAVE A PROBLEM. (*SNORT*)

Besides grading eggs at Wright County egg, the USDA workers also wrote a daily review of 22 categories of cleanliness. Reviews from last year and April of this year generally found conditions satisfactory. Around mid-May, however, the marks shifted to "unsatisfactory" in several areas including some deemed "critical."

Over time, conditions grew worse and in July and August, a few critical areas were called unsatisfactory several days a week.

* AND... er... umm... THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE "EXPERTS" DIDN'T SEE THE NEED TO NOTIFY FDA...???

* FIRE THE CURRENT SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. SOMETHING TELLS ME THE NEW SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE WILL PURGE THE AGENCY PROPERLY. (BUT FIRST... FIRE THE CURRENT SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE; A MESSAGE MUST BE SENT!)

September 10, 2010 at 1:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/congress-taxes-irs.html

[F]ederal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

* AS IN... $1,000,000,000.00

As in, 1,000 times one million dollars.

The [Washington] Post's T.W. Farnum did some research [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090903376.html?wpisrc=nl_polalert] and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes.

Now, back taxes have been a problem for the Obama-Biden administration. You may recall early on that Tom Daschle was the president's top pick to run the Health and Human Services Department. But it turned out the former Democratic senator, who was un-elected from South Dakota in 2004, owed something like $120,000 to the IRS for things from his subsequent benefactor that he just forgot to pay taxes on. You know how that is. $120G's here or there. So he dropped out.

And then we learned this guy Timothy Geithner owed something like $42,000 in back taxes and penalties to the IRS, which is one of the agencies that he'd be in charge of as secretary of the Treasury. The fine fellow who's supposed to know about handling everyone else's money. In the end this was excused by Washington's bipartisan CYA culture as one of those inadvertent accidental oversights that somehow never seem to happen on the side of paying too much taxes.

(And under Geithner's expert guidance the U.S. economy has been, well, wow! Just look at it.)

Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquents' names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes.

In the House of Representatives, 421 people owe a total $6,524,892.

In the Senate, 217 owe $2,774,836.

In the IRS' parent department, Treasury, 1,204 owe $7,670,814.

At the Labor Department, where Secretary Hilda Solis' husband had some back-tax problems before her confirmation, 463 owe $7,481,463.

Eighty-one workers for the Federal Reserve System's board of governors owe $1,076,733.

Over at the Justice Department, which is so busy enforcing other laws and suing Arizona, 1,971 employees still owe $14,350,152 in overdue taxes.

Then, we come to the Department of Homeland Security, which is run by Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who preferred to call terrorist acts "man-caused disasters." Homeland Security is keeping all of us safe by ensuring that a Dutch tourist is aboard every inbound international flight to thwart any would-be bomber with explosives in his underpants.

Within that department, there reside 4,856 people who owe the tax agency a whopping total of $37,012,174.

And they're checking our pockets for metal and coins?

September 10, 2010 at 6:16 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100910/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gm_ceo_pay_4

New General Motors Co. CEO Daniel Akerson will get the same $9 million pay package as the man he replaced, Ed Whitacre.

Akerson, a former telecommunications industry and private equity executive, will receive $1.7 million in annual salary, $5.3 million in short-term stock payable over the next three years, and another $2 million in stock that's part of the company's long-term executive compensation plan.

* WE MUST END THE PRACTICE OF AWARDING STOCK OR STOCK OPTIONS AS COMPENSATION. PAY SHOULD BE "MONEY." PERIOD.

The automaker, which is 60.8% owned by the U.S. government, disclosed the pay package in a filing on Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

* YEAH... AND DID ANY OF YOU GET A VOTE ON THIS PACKAGE?

GM's SEC filing said that Akerson agreed to the pay package after the government's pay czar approved it Wednesday. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg stepped down on Friday and was replaced by Treasury Department lawyer Patricia Geoghegan.

* VERY INTERESTING...

September 10, 2010 at 6:16 PM

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