The Goat Pen

bluetick wrote:This pearl came from News of the Weird (April 14, 2011). Everybody loves News of the Weird..

Leading Economic Indicators
- According to a February 2011 analysis of 2007 IRS statistics by a columnist for Tax Notes, the average taxpayer residing in New York City's posh Helmsley Building (owned before her death by Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly said "only the little people pay taxes") paid only 14.7 percent of his income in federal taxes while New York City janitors and security guards (such as those employed by the Helmsley Building) paid about 24 percent. Helmsley residents were taxed less for Social Security and Medicare, and much of their $1.17 million average income was in capital gains, which are taxed at the same rate as modestly paid (up to $34,000 a year) workers.

1. A single person making $34,000 actually has an effective rate of less than 10%. If he is married and has a couple of kids, not only is his income tax -0-, but he probably gets some of his SS back through EIC and refundable child tax credits. 'Tick, why are you trying too mislead?

2. Social Security and Medicare has always, since it's inception, been calculated on earnings, not investement income. That's the way the Fedral Insurance contribution Act was authored by FDR. It's an insurance program. What you get, depends on what you pay in. So after 70 years, you want to change it?

3. Since 1921, capital gains rates have always been lower than ordinary (compensation rates). Every President and 90% of economists believe this is good for the economy. In fact, Bill Clinton, a democrat, has made the biggest historical reduction of capital gains rate of any President.

Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops

ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

"Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide," ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. "No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure."

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

More....

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp

It's the Chinese' fault. The price of gas has gone up by %30 in three months because the Chinese demand has gone up by 30% in three months. It's all about the the free market, supply and demand, people.

Not trying to mislead, Sardis. Your whys-and-wherefores wrt capital gains are noted. NotW apparently wanted to draw a comparison between Leona Helmsley's famous quote with the 'tax state of affairs' of inhabitants living in the building of her namesake. I guess.

I thought everybody liked News of the Weird.

APRIL 18, 2011 4:00 A.M.

Not Tax Cuts, Not Wars, and Not Bailouts

What is really driving America into insolvency.

— Kevin D. Williamson National Review

Your average poorly informed lefty (but I repeat myself) will reliably tell you that our current fiscal straits are the result of three things: 1. Bush’s wars; 2. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich; 3. Bush’s bank bailouts.

That is not true, of course: The main bank bailouts (odious as they were) have been paid back, often at a profit. The money-losing parts (and the likely money-losing parts) are the ones insisted upon by Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues: the foreclosure-prevention programs, the endless maintenance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc.

The Iraq War, in its most expensive year, cost $140 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Its total cost over the years is estimated at about $700 billion — a good deal less spending than, say, Obama’s stimulus package. It is not, and has not been, an exceptionally large driver of our deficit spending.

Our deficit is running around $1.6 trillion. If we took all military spending — not just the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but the whole shebang — and cut it to $0.00, we’d save about $664 billion a year. Iraq and Afghanistan will cost about $170 billion combined in FY2011. Ending the Bush tax cuts for “the rich” — for the $250,000-and-up crowd, in Obama’s formulation — would put on average about another $80 billion a year into Treasury coffers. (CBO estimates the ten-year cost of those tax cuts at $800 billion.) The spending on the wars and the forgone revenue from the Bush tax cuts do not add up to much of that $1.6 trillion deficit: a little less than 16 percent.

The tax cuts for the unrich were a good deal more expensive, which is why Obama’s rhetoric on the tax cuts sort of makes my head hurt: The president says he agreed to tax cuts for “the rich” only to preserve tax cuts for “the middle class” — which is to say, he agreed to a mere $800 billion in tax cuts that he didn’t want in order to preserve a considerable $2.2 trillion in tax cuts that he did want — and then argues that our problem is too many tax cuts, two-thirds of which he was so intent on keeping that he took the other third, too. But even that $2.2 trillion over ten years would not make much of a dent in our $1.6 trillion annual deficit.

And just who are these “rich”? Under Obama’s arbitrary, politically minded cutoffs ($200,000 for an individual, $250,000 for a couple), a public-school administrator earning $130,000 a year married to a pharmacist earning $125,000 a year and raising four kids is rhetorically lumped in with “millionaires and billionaires,” as the president put it, and desperately in need of a tax hike — but a single guy earning $198,000 a year is in the middle class, and his $2.2 trillion in tax cuts must be protected.

More...................

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/264917

Professor Tiger wrote:It's the Chinese' fault. The price of gas has gone up by %30 in three months because the Chinese demand has gone up by 30% in three months. It's all about the the free market, supply and demand, people.

Just remember that China is the worlds largest market for cars now:

General Motors unveiled the first model of its new car brand aimed specifically at China on Monday, aiming to strengthen its sales lead in the world's top auto market by wooing middle-class drivers.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

.
China overtook the United States as the world's top car market in 2009. GM is the leading foreign automaker in the country as measured by sales.

Bobby Jindall was on the Today Show this a.m., blasting oprama for the government takeover of healthcare (?) and the government takeover of the car industry.

That's a good story about GM, puter. I guess we're all glad GM is still around, even though they were 'taken over' by oprama's socialist government.

Bush bailed out the banks, but oprama 'took over' the automakers. Funny how that works.

So if I buy a car, I write the check to the govt?

Hell, I put 75.00 in my F-150 last night. Dual tanks. At 3.779 a gal, that wasn't even 20 gallons. So one full tank, 1/2 of another, but it'll last me about 3 weeks.

Damn good thing Obama's helping us out and Bush ain't fuckin us over at the pumps anymore.

Professor Tiger wrote:It's the Chinese' fault. The price of gas has gone up by %30 in three months because the Chinese demand has gone up by 30% in three months. It's all about the the free market, supply and demand, people.

No fuckin' common sense from you allowed.

Dora wrote:So if I buy a car, I write the check to the govt?

GM now = Government Motors

Cool! I guess the GM workers all get govt benefits now?

Well, dems...err, I mean, unions got most of the stimulus anyway..

[img2]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/10ac/caption.jpg[/img2]

Toemeesleather wrote:Well, dems...err, I mean, unions got most of the stimulus anyway..

So what happened to management & the board? All fired?

Cabinet positions.

Well good, then everyone is happy.

"Damn good thing Obama's helping us out and Bush ain't fuckin us over at the pumps anymore."

Ain't it the truth?

And still no stories about Obama in bed with Big Oil, as the explanation for the high gas prices.

Gas prices are high?

What are you smoking?

What are gas prices smoking?