Category Archives: Finance

Finance, Government

Steal From The Poor And Give To Whom?

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Thank you oh great leaders and minds running this nut house.

The Los Angeles County board of supervisors is considering a 1/4% increase in the county wide sales tax to fund programs to help the 47,000+ (and increasing) homeless population.

Just “For Your Information”, the LA County sales tax will be 9.5% in 2017 and automatically goes up to 10% in 2039.  The proposed increase is on top of all of that.  All of you nice Angelenos will be paying almost 10% on everything you buy if the measure passes.

The sales tax increase is expected to generate $335,000,000.00 each year. Yesiree, Bob, that’s more than a THIRD OF A BILLION DOLLAR$. More than $7000 for every homeless person.

Looking at it another way, the money raised for the 47,000 works out to a $3.56 per hour raise for each of them if they worked full-time. Someone who makes $15 per hour (for all you Feel The Bern folks), that’s equivalent to a 24% raise!  The 2017 minimum wage in Los Angeles will be $12 per hour so that would be almost a 30% raise.

Everyone ready for your 30% raise next year? Of course we all get those sorts of raises every single year.  Woohoo!  Just need to be one of the 47,000,

Here’s my take. A sales tax increase is about the most regressive tax that can be enacted. What do I mean by that? Well sales tax is paid at the same rate whether you’re rich or poor. The people that a sales tax increase hurts the most are the working poor. It takes a bigger bite out of what money they have to live on than it does to a wealthy individual. That’s why we have income tax brackets. Those on the lower end pay at a lower rate than those who are the top wage earners. Sales tax is not graduated by income.  Of course the brain trust with all their great wisdom of the ages, and their caring progressive socialist agenda, takes this all into consideration, as they stick it to the hard working people that they SAY (words can be cheap) they look out for and represent.  And they still wonder why Mr. Trump won the Presidential Election.

To be fair, the geniuses who think up this stuff, the County Supervisors, are part of the WORKING POOR and they feel the pain of having to get by on ONLY about $200,000 in annual salary and $3,000,000 (that’s right 3 MILLION DOLLAR$) in expenses. The $3 million is to cover office supplies, staff, limousines, pet projects, you know the day to day stuff we all spend $3 million a year on.  And I’m not counting any of the side deals that of course DON’T happen, wink wink.  Tough to get by on that paltry amount.  So they are suffering along with the rest of us dregs.  “I feel your pain“, Bill ‘Flat broke with only $150 million’ Clinton.

All part of the great progressive movement of wealth redistribution.  Robbing Hood, steal from the working poor and give the the non-working!  Seems fair to me.  The fairness of it all makes my ‘DEPLORABLE‘ (I’m one of those low life racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, conservatives who obviously doesn’t give a crap) body feel all tingly!  Of course I may be feeling something sneaking up from behind.  I’d best not drop the soap…

Finance, Government, Politics

Do Numbers Have Any Meaning?

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Lots of people are laughing at Mr. Trump’s leaked tax return that shows he accumulated over SEVERAL YEARS about $900 million in losses. Hillybob is also one cackling about what a POOR businessman Donald Trump was and is.

Let’s look at another number. Under the wonderful economic plan set into motion by President Obama, in 2016 ALONE, just ONE YEAR, the national debt will INCREASE about $502,000,000,000. Over half a TRILLION dollar loss! I guess he’s quite the AMAZING businessman because he’s calling that loss an economic SUCCESS!

Hillybob wants to continue this most excellent economic plan and in fact expand it.

I’m not the smartest guy in the room (unlike POTUS or Hillybob), but if I lost HALF A TRILLION DOLLAR$ in just one year, I’d be ashamed and embarrassed NOT touting how successful I was.

According to the latest poll, it appears that ‘WE THE SUBJECTS‘ want MORE of this kind of great business acumen.

Finance, Politics

Economic Recovery

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Mr Trump said something quite profound last night and I suspect most people missed it.

He said that the economic recovery, that President Obama and Hillary Clinton laud as their great success, is only a financial recovery.  His exact words, “Now, look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We’re in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market…”

What is a ‘financial recovery’ versus a ‘real economic recovery’?  Let’s examine what an expert says.

Harvard economist Clayton Christensen outlined in a talk that he gave about business growth. what has happened with economic recoveries after recessions. You can watch the talk HERE. It’s well worth watching the first 9 minutes.  Watch the whole thing if you’re a business-gloid!

Summarizing what Christensen said, is that during a recession jobs are lost and companies will work to fulfill their business obligations with remaining staff. The recession bottoms out for a period of time but eventually a company will need to start hiring staff as the economy recovers and sales increase.

Christensen states that there have been NINE recessions in the US since World War 2. During the first SIX recessions the average time was six months after hitting bottom that hiring started again.

The seventh recession was in 1991-2 and that recovery took 15 months.

The next recession was in 2001-2 and that recovery took 39 months.

The ninth and latest recession was in 2007-8 and that recovery took SIX YEARS.

Christensen says about this latest recession recovery, “These rebounds are financial and not real in character“.  Hmmm, sound familiar?

He goes on to say, “So people who have money get a lot of money faster. But the rest of us, there are not a lot of jobs in which we get slotted in anymore”.

“And there is something that has fundamentally gone wrong with our economy“.

The numbers bear out what Mr. Trump and Mr. Christensen point out.

The White House touts that because of their wonderful economic policies that there are only 7.5 million people unemployed. They conveniently forget about the 94 million workers who just dropped out of the work force because they can’t get a job.

I agree with Mr. Christensen that something “has fundamentally gone wrong with our economy“.

Who would you rather have taking charge of our economy, a businessman or a political wonk whose new plan is a massive expansion of the same old failed plan?  I guess I’m pretty ‘deplorable‘ for asking that question.

“Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss”, The Who.