Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Barker's Election Day Newsbites: Nov. 2, 2010


Today I have just one question...
Posted by at

6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-01/fed-likely-to-announce-500-billion-of-purchases-survey-shows.html

The Federal Reserve will probably introduce an unprecedented second round of "unconventional" monetary easing tomorrow by announcing a plan to buy at least $500 billion of long-term securities, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

* FOLKS. FELLOW AMERICANS. FELLOW TAXPAYERS. WHAT THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH IS SAYING - TRANSLATED INTO PLAIN EVERYDAY ENGLISH - IS THAT THE OBAMA GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING ON ADDING $500 BILLION IN ADDITIONAL TO THE BACKS OF US AND OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.

* THAT'S HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN NEW DEBT...

(*SIGH*)

* THAT'S HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN NEW DEBT IN ONE FELL SWOOP. NO VOTE OF CONGRESS. NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORIZATION. NO WAY FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO SAY "NO!"

* PRAY THAT THIS NEWS REPORT - THIS "PROBABLY" PREDICTION - IS WRONG... OR AT LEAST BADLY OVERSTATED.

November 2, 2010 at 10:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/8103462/QE2-risks-currency-wars-and-the-end-of-dollar-hegemony.html

As the US Federal Reserve meets today to decide whether its next blast of quantitative easing should be $1 trillion or a more cautious $500bn, it does so knowing that China and the emerging world view the policy as an attempt to drive down the dollar.

The Fed's "QE2" risks accelerating the demise of the dollar-based currency system...

* NOTICE THEY SAY "ACCELERATING THE DEMISE." IN OTHER WORDS, THERE'S SIMPLY NO DOUBT IN THEIR MINDS THAT OUR OWN GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO DELIBERATELY ATTACK OUR OWN CURRENCY.

* FOLKS... HERE'S WHAT'S SO DISHEARTENING: CONSIDER... YES, YOU ARE AWARE OF WHAT'S GOING ON... BUT HOW MANY OF YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES - COLLEGE EDUCATED PROFESSIONS - ARE AWARE OF THIS BASIC CONCEPT THAT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE ARE DELIBERATELY DESTROYING THE DOLLAR...???

November 2, 2010 at 10:37 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/251906/harrahs-bosses-put-squeeze-employees-vote-pro-reid-effort-elizabeth-crum

Executives at the casino giant Harrah’s pushed company employees to vote early in an all-out effort to help the Harry Reid campaign, according to internal emails obtained by Battle ‘10.

The stepped-up effort began Wednesday when a Reid staffer sent an email pleading for help to Harrah’s top lobbyist, Jan Jones.

Soon after, Marybel Batjer, Harrah’s vice president of public policy and communications, distributed that plea via email to executives throughout the company.

* SEE: http://watchdogmedia.org/national/Harrahs/Harrahs_Early_Vote_Email_trail_110210.pdf

On Friday, Western Regional President Tom Jenkin sent out a follow-up email showing a total vote count for Harrah’s properties along with the percentages of employees who had voted at each property. Attached to the email was a spreadsheet showing employee names and at which property they worked. Supervisors were asked to fill in codes explaining why their employees had not yet voted.

* CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT...?!?! I MEAN... TALK ABOUT INVASION OF PRIVACY...

The Harrah’s employee who forwarded the emails asked not to be identified due to fear of reprisal. The employee said the pressure from upper management was “disturbing.”

“We were asked to talk to people individually to find out why they had not yet voted and to fill in these spreadsheets explaining why,” the employee said. “I did not feel comfortable doing that.”

“It put me in a very awkward position,” the employee added, saying the level of coordination between Harrah’s upper management, the culinary union, and the Reid campaign was “disgusting.”

A spokesman with the Federal Election Commission declined to comment on the case, but encourages anyone who feels that an election-law violation has occurred to file a complaint with the commission.

(*SMIRK*)

November 2, 2010 at 3:13 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-street-is-like-a-heist-movie-2010-11-02

The best way to understand Wall Street is to view it as a heist movie, like “The Sting,” “The Italian Job” or “Ocean’s Eleven.”

There’s just one difference: In your traditional caper, a bunch of little guys get together to steal money from the big guys - a tycoon, big bank or major corporation. On Wall Street, it works the other way around.

Take the Great Bond Caper taking place right under your nose, right now. Most people don’t even know it’s going on.

Major corporations are jumping on the bond mania to borrow billions of dollars from ordinary investors at pitifully low interest rates. Mutual-fund investors are so desperate for income they’ll accept almost anything. So Wal-Mart Stores Inc. last week issued $5 billion worth of bonds, or IOUs, at an average rate of 2.9% last week. That included 30-year bonds paying 5% and shorter-term paper paying almost nothing.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sold $1.3 billion in 50-year bonds at just 6.125%.

* JUST FOR YUCKS, GOOGLE "CLINTON + GOLDMAN SACHS" AND DO A BIT OF BROWSING. (*SMIRK*) THEN FOR MORE "FUN," GOOGLE "OBAMA + GOLDMAN SACHS".

Other blue chips that have raised big money or are expected to do so shortly include Bank of America Corp., Coca-Cola Co., Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, and PepsiCo Inc.

* SO MUCH FOR "MAIN STREET." (*SMIRK*)

If you are invested in a mutual fund that owns bonds, including corporate bonds, there’s a good chance some of the cash going into these issues is yours. Good luck with that.

We already know that anyone buying these IOUs is taking a terrible risk. If inflation takes off, these bonds will tank. The prices will slump and the coupons will lose their purchasing power.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has all but promised to make inflation take off, one way or another.

But here is what they’re not telling you: The Great Bond Caper is also an incredible tax dodge.

* To be continued...

November 2, 2010 at 5:34 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

Corporate America is using these bonds to shift millions of dollars of tax liabilities from their boardrooms into your living room. You are going to be paying more of their taxes for them, so they’ll pay less.

How?

The interest payments on these bonds are tax-deductible for corporations; the money comes off the top. So corporations save 35%, their typical marginal-tax rate.

Meanwhile, the bond coupons are fully taxable to the investors - and not even at the lower tax rates applied to dividends or capital gains. The bond coupons are taxable at ordinary income-tax rates. By my calculations, Wal-Mart’s interest payments on its newest bonds will cut its taxable income by $144 million a year.

If the company pays 35% tax, that’s a cash saving of $50 million annually. Meanwhile, bondholders’ taxes will rise.

As for Goldman Sachs? The interest on its new 50-year bonds will come to $80 million a year, saving America’s favorite “vampire squid” $28 million at year.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

[T]he caper doesn’t even end there. These companies can take this money they’ve borrowed from U.S. investors and send it overseas. That will create no jobs here - and if it goes to open a cheap, low-wage factory, may undercut some of the jobs that remain. If they do that, the corporation may escape U.S. taxation on the profits from that money altogether. That’s because corporations get generous tax breaks on overseas profits. It’s a double sting. The bond interest cuts their taxes here. In addition, the money is invested overseas, where it escapes U.S. tax as well.

There are other ways companies can work the tax code as well. They could, for example, just use the money to buy some of their stock. That’s not a taxable move. Doing that will boost the value of the shares left outstanding. It will add to earnings per share and shareholder returns. That would be great news for investors - including, naturally, the senior honchos, who are typically loaded up to the gills with stock and options. Under current rules, they’ll just pay 15% capital-gains tax on their profits.

Consider a retired widow who has her money in bond funds, and who has taxable income of say, $40,000 a year. She will have to pay 25% federal income tax on the (pitifully low) bond income her fund gets from the likes of Goldman Sachs. At the same time, Lloyd “God’s work” Blankfein, the Goldman chief executive, will only have to pay 15% on his millions in stock gains.

* FOLKS... WITH ALL THE ROBOCALLS... WITH ALL THE DESPERATE CALLS AND MAILINGS AND TV AND RADIO COMMERCIALS COMING FROM THE DEMS... NOTE THAT YOU'RE HEARING ABOUT THIS SCAM HERE - COURTESY OF BARKER'S NEWSBITES... COURTESY OF BRETT ARENDS OF MARKETWATCH.

November 2, 2010 at 5:36 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590642149103202.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories

General Motors Co. won't have to pay up to $45 billion in taxes under an unusual provision of its government-funded bailout...

* "UNUSUAL," HUH? (*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*) WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA.

GM may use so-called tax-loss carry-forwards to shield its profit from taxes for up to 20 years,

* NICE, HUH?! OH, YEAH... BARAK OBAMA, FRIEND OF THE LITTLE GUY... (*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)

* FUNNY HOW THIS NEWS CAME OUT TODAY OF ALL DAYS, HUH...?

(*SMIRK*)

November 2, 2010 at 11:30 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)