![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/quotes_7a.gif)
Should anyone be taxed over 100% of income? Happened to some in France for tax year 2011.
Vive le France? Well, one of the reasons there is less “vive” in France these days is because of asinine policies such as the one imposed by France’s current Socialist government which is highlighted below.
Eat the rich? See how many of the rich stick around to be eaten.
How on earth would a country ever turn itself around with this sort of economic mentality? The French are basically saying that they don’t want capital creation within their borders.
(From Reuters)
“…the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).
President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual’s overall taxation at 50 percent of income.”
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
12 Incredible Examples of Government Waste This Year (The squirrel drone still lives)
I am really sorry to hear that the folks a Smuttynose Beer are pretty blatant crony capitalists. They make a very good pale ale. Guess I have to strike them from the grilling out list.
Sadly the robot squirrel still lives in 2013. Or as we call it around here, the woodland drone project.
The post 12 Incredible Examples of Government Waste This Year (The squirrel drone still lives) appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Washington DC issues 436 parking tickets per hour, Over $92,000,000 in revenue last year
I go into downtown Washington DC about 3 or 4 times a month, and long ago I learned to never to park on the street. Why? Because it is almost a guarantee that one will get a ticket.
The District makes it as difficult as possible to find a space, and once one is found the city even makes it harder to pay the meter. They have these meter stations which one pays with a credit card, but half the time it’s impossible to figure out whether one is paying for oneself of someone else’s car.
Don’t park on the street in DC. Take it from me. One time after I’d just started working near Capitol Hill years ago I came back after work to find my car gone. I looked around. I was pretty sure no one was interested in my old Ford Contour. I saw a guy in overalls and a hard hat getting into a truck. The truck had a DC seal on the door.
“Hey man,” I said. “Have you seen a green Ford Contour by any chance?”
“Yeah,” he said as he slid into his seat.
“We had to repave the road here.” He pointed to the ground. “We towed a bunch of cars down the road. 4 blocks.”
“Thanks” I said. And he drove off.
I did find my car, and it was in no worse shape than it was that morning thankfully. But had I not stopped the guy from getting into his truck I would have had no idea what had happened. And even at that point in my Washington career I knew the police wouldn’t be any help.
So take this advice. Don’t park on the street in DC.
(From WTOP.com)
“This is pure unadulterated exploitation of motorists. D.C. couldn’t get the commuter tax it wanted. So it makes it exceedingly hard to find parking, then you fine them for overstayed at the meter,” says Townsend.
The post Washington DC issues 436 parking tickets per hour, Over $92,000,000 in revenue last year appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
2012 the 2nd best year ever for bank profits. Thanks taxpayers!
Dimon wearing his famous presidential cuff links.
Of course I have yet to hear anyone on Wall Street thank the taxpayers of America for anything. Did Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfien ever look into the camera during a congressional hearing and say-
“American people, thanks for saving our bacon in 2008. Thanks for saving us from ourselves. Thanks for the giant bonues in the years since 2008 which could not have happened if it wasn’t for all you rednecks out there in flyover country, I mean good citizens. And thanks also for the ongoing subsidy you fine Americans pay us every year, the subsidy which constitutes nearly all of the profits of the big banks. Thank you, so much.”
No, none of those guys ever said anything like that. Why? Because they aren’t thankful. They just think they’re smart.
Remember, according to Bloomberg.com, nearly all of the profits of the big banks, the second largest amount ever, is as a result of a taxpayer subsidy created when these banks became officially “too big to fail.”
The post 2012 the 2nd best year ever for bank profits. Thanks taxpayers! appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
Other • Consumer Metrics Institute: A Hard Year Ahead
Consumer Metrics Institute: A Hard Year Ahead
by John Rubino on February 28, 2013 ·
The US economy stalled in the 4th quarter, but the analysis that accompanied the latest (slightly positive) GDP revision seemed to imply that the reasons for the weakness – a drawdown of inventories and lower defense spending – would be reversed out in coming months, making 2013 a pretty good year.
But the Consumer Metrics Institute, in its latest take on the data, argues that this year is more likely to be an extended version of Q4. Here’s an excerpt from the much longer report which is available here.
Despite the new-found minuscule “growth” reported in this release, there are ample reasons to remain cautious about the economy:
– Even as revised this data represents an economy that is statistically in a dead stall, “growing” at a rate some 3% less than during the prior quarter (the greatest downward quarter-to-quarter change since the fourth quarter of 2008).
– This data is still reporting 4Q-2012, a quarter that in retrospect may be viewed as the last gasp of the “Great Recovery” — before there were significant economic headwinds created by reductions in consumer take-home pay, rising gas prices, sequestered federal spending and accelerating contractions in global trade. If all other components of the economy stay the same, those factors alone could remove something like 3% from real-time economic “growth” by the end of the first quarter of 2013: the normalization of FICA deductions alone could reduce consumer spending enough to pull the headline number down by 1%, the $.50 per gallon increase in gas prices could similarly remove another 0.5% from the headline number, weakening exports could easily reduce the headline number by another 1% and the federal budget sequestrations — if fully implemented and sustained — should eventually pull (at maximum, despite doomsday rhetoric) an additional 0.5% from the headline number.
– However, with respect to the “sequestrations”: political will and doomsday rhetoric notwithstanding, even if they are implemented by Congressional mandate (or inaction) there may be no reason to expect actual short term government spending to change. The budgetary shenanigans during the third quarter of 2012 (when a defense spending spree created a phantom boost to pre-election economic data by bringing some spending forward by a quarter — and incidentally across a fiscal year boundary) probably taught the US Federal bureaucracy that as a practical matter they can spend at will and with utter impunity from the budgetary intentions of the fiscally conservative majority in the US House of Representatives.
In the day-to-day reality of this Administration there simply may be no legal or political consequences to overspending Congressionally-approved budgets in pursuit of the perceived greater good.
To summarize the most interesting points:
Q3 growth was artificially boosted by moving up future defense spending, which vindicates the people who said we can’t trust an election year recovery. They predicted that the numbers would get worse as soon as the votes were counted, and they were right. Q4 GDP growth was essentially zero. And the incumbents got away with the scam. It’s amazing what we’ve learned to accept from the ruling class.
Some of the things that made Q4 so weak will indeed be reversed out, but this will be more than offset by higher payroll taxes and gas prices and Europe’s inability to buy much from the US or anywhere else in the year ahead.
When confronted with budgetary constraints, the federal government has reached the point in its moral devolution that it will simply spend whatever it wants regardless of what the law says. Again, it’s amazing how low the “business as usual” bar has been set.
And finally, the stock market is behaving like it’s entering another bubble, which sets up an interesting collision between the liquidity-driven boom and zero-growth visions. Since we’re already two-thirds of the way through Q1, a resolution one way or the other should come soon.
http://dollarcollapse.com/the-economy/c … ear-ahead/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Mar 01, 2013 12:25 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Canadian • Toronto new home sales drop nearly 35% from year ago in Janu
Toronto new home sales drop nearly 35% from year ago in January
Garry Marr | Feb 26, 2013
More from Garry Marr | @DustyWallet
Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
Only 562 low rise homes sold in the GTA last month, down from 1,174 from a year ago, said the Building Industry and Land Development Association.
New home sales in the country’s largest housing market continued to decline in January, off almost 35% from a year ago.
RealNet Canada Inc. said there were 1,248 homes sold across the Greater Toronto Area in January, compared to 1,918 a year ago. Sales were down about 44% from two years ago. They were 686 high rise sales in January across the GTA, down from 744 a year ago.
High rise prices remained firm with RealNet Home Index showing they climbed 2% in January, on a year over year basis. The index price is now $435,722 for a condo.
The Building Industry and Land Development Association says the low rise market has slowed because of government land policies and that has pushed the index price on a low rise home to $639,588, a 16% increase from a year ago.
“The tale of the low-rise market is illustrated by constrained land supply and a lack of product and choice,” said the group, in a release.
BILD said only 562 low rise homes sold in the GTA last month, down from 1,174 from a year ago.
“People still want to purchase a detached, semi-detached or townhouse in the GTA and over the last few years, we have seen a reduction in sales of ground-related housing,” said Bryan Tuckey, chief executive of BILD, in a release.
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/ … =11dc-0440
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:12 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gold and Silver • Return of Chinese buyers from New Year holiday to rally gol
Return of Chinese buyers from New Year holiday to rally gold as central banks buy most in 50 years
Posted on 15 February 2013
Bearish noises in the gold pit have lowered prices again this week but the real reason for the price fall is the absence of the world’s most voracious buyers, the Chinese who are on a national holiday this week for their New Year, though they have been buying in the gold souks of Dubai instead.
Global central banks bought more gold last year than at any time in the past 50 years, according to figures published yesterday by the World Gold Council. They added 535 tons to reserves, 17 per cent more than in 2011. Gold prices rose for a 12th successive year.
Gold bears
The bear argument against gold is that economic growth is picking up in the US and China and will divert investment into stocks and away from disaster insurance like gold. That can only really stack up if you believe economic growth is actually about to accelerate.
Unexpectedly GDP in the US did not grow at all in Q4 and recent Chinese trade data is a fiction according to many Asian economists. Besides if the world economy does grow a bit faster this year it will be entirely down to money printing by the global central banks who continue to hedge their own inflation risk with gold.
Individuals are likely to do the same and hedge funds could quickly switch back to being bullion positive. Our local ‘Mr. Gold’ in Dubai thinks the gold price will bottom at current levels and not test the $1,500 an ounce level that chartists have as a potential floor.
Chinese liquidity coming back into the bullion market is probably all it takes. China is the biggest global gold consumer and overtook India sometime last year. They always love to snap up a bargain and with gold on sale should be back with a bang from their holidays.
China bulls
ArabianMoney does not buy the argument about Chinese growth being bearish for gold. If it is true then the inflation risk is elevated again and the Chinese know gold is the best way to diversify their foreign exchange reserves.
Gold legend Jim Sinclair has highlighted the Chinese as the savoirs of the gold price in 2013 with the first Chinese ETF on the horizon . We think the current price weakness is just down to the absence of Chinese buyers for their New Year.
Sell your gold cheaply now and you will regret it as the price goes up again. Mr. Sinclair’s conservative price target is still $3,500 an ounce.
http://www.arabianmoney.net/gold-silver … -50-years/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:22 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Canadian • Canada sees biggest jobs decline in half a year
Canada sees biggest jobs decline in half a year
TAVIA GRANT
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Feb. 08 2013
Canadian employers shed 21,900 jobs last month, the first decline in half a year, as schools and factories reduced headcount.
Despite the drop, the country’s jobless rate ebbed to 7 per cent in January from 7.1 per cent as fewer people looked for work, Statistics Canada said Friday.
Job growth had been robust in recent months, strength that seemed at odds with other data that showed a clear slowdown in the economy. The latest report shows employment levels are now starting to reflect that soft patch, economists said.
“That the labour market continued to power along when the economy was growing at a less than 1-per-cent pace in the second half of 2012 seemed out of whack,” said Dawn Desjardins, assistant chief economist at RBC, in a note.
While January’s report was “disappointing,” she sees the jobless rate gradually easing to 6.7 per cent by the end of next year, helped by an improving global economy.
For the near term, separate reports out Friday showed softer-than-expected housing starts and a weakening trade picture, more evidence of a tepid economy.
The Canadian dollar fell after the reports, trading just below parity.
Last month’s larger-than-expected employment drop came as the public sector eliminated 27,000 positions. The number of private-sector workers also eased in the month while self-employment rose.
In the private sector, Sears Canada, Best Buy, Talisman and Cirque de Soleil have all announced job cuts in recent weeks.
As the federal government prepares its upcoming budget, some say it should ramp up spending on infrastructure projects, in part to bolster employment.
“As federal and provincial governments formulate their budgets, they should invest more in public services and infrastructure to support employment,” said Erin Weir, economist and president of the Progressive Economics Forum, in a note.
Among sectors, education and manufacturing led the decline, falling by 30,900 and 21,600 respectively. Factory employment is now at similar levels to a year earlier, the agency said.
Construction companies added to payrolls and so did public administration.
Employment fell in Ontario and British Columbia last month, and among men between the ages of 25 and 54. Older men and youth saw jobs gains.
Job levels are still higher than a year ago. Employment has grown 1.6 per cent from last year, all in full-time positions, Statscan said.
Economists had expected 5,000 new jobs with the jobless rate rising a notch to 7.2 per cent.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o … le8374406/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Feb 08, 2013 1:33 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gruber: No Reason for States to Establish ObamaCare Exchanges This Year
Michael F. Cannon
On Tuesday, I testified before the Florida Senate’s Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Also testifying was economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is an architect of RomneyCare, and one of ObamaCare’s leading proponents. So it was significant when Gruber agreed that there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year:
Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, and Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agreed on little about the federal health law, [yet] one bit of common ground emerged: Florida should go slow in its approach to a health-insurance exchange.
Gruber thinks that for 2014, states would be better off opting for a type of federal Exchange called a type of “partnership” Exchange, and then maybe running the Exchange themselves after that. I argue there is no reason for states to lift a finger to implement this law, now or ever, and that states would benefit from refusing both to establish an Exchange and to expand their Medicaid programs.
But now that ObamaCare’s leading proponent has acknowledged there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year, it will be easier for states who are still wrestling with that question (e.g., Idaho, Utah, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi) to make up their minds.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Schweizer: 2012 a Banner Year for Cronyism
As usual Peter Schweizer is right. Last year was a good year for crony capitalists.
Lots of money was made (taken.) Many a deal was quietly done. And Washington continues to shine its beacon to all who would work the system. Like moths to a bonfire the cronies cross the Key Bridge into District The land of milk and honey. Your milk and your honey.
(From FoxNews.com)
In 2012, the cronies had a banner year, poaching billions of taxpayer dollars to pump up their profits and redistribute their losses. In other instances, the cronies leveraged their insider connections to evade prosecutions and skirt the laws that apply to the rest of us. Consider just a few of the cronies that got away in 2012.
The post Schweizer: 2012 a Banner Year for Cronyism appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
View full post on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org