Posts Tagged ‘debt’

Newer Entries »

Steve Wynn Blasts Obama

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

On Wynn Resorts’ Feb 25th’s earnings call, CEO Steve Wynn blasted the Obama administration and Congress for anti-business policies and destructive tax policies. A professional CEO’s atypical engagement in political discourse on an earnings call speaks to the extent of the problem with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid leftist triumvirate.

Here is an excerpt of the call. It’s one of Wynn’s answers to an analyst question.

[A - Stephen Wynn]: …. Job formation and the kinds of companies that make jobs are under attack in the United States of America.

You know, MGM aside for a moment. Last year we created almost 5,000 jobs and immediately became the target of the administration. Businesses that created jobs, let alone gaming companies that created jobs, had to be no good. I mean, it is preposterous that businesses are under attack in the United States of America. Anybody that makes over $250,000 in the form of a personal income tax return is now, by Washington definition, a rich person, when everybody who has got a college degree knows that the personal income tax rate in the United States of America is the business tax of America. Every subchapter S, every individual proprietorship and every partnership in the United States of America files tax returns as individuals, and when they do, and they show that they made 2 million or 3 million or, God forbid, 4 million, they pay the income tax rate; they deduct their working expenses, their living expenses; and then they invest in a new store, a new shop, and most of the time 25% of their profits, quote, unquote, are tied up in accounts receivable or inventory. But all of the sudden, all of those people who make over 250,000 are rich folks to be fleeced. And if that’s job formation stimulation in America, I’m Mary Poppins. And if I sound angry about it and disgusted, I am disgusted and angry at the apparent ignorance of the administration and the Congress to recognize the fact that the individual tax rate in the United States of America is, in fact, a business tax of America. And if you keep banging on that, you will destroy the incentive for job formation in the United States of America. And that’s simple truth, simple truth. And whether politicians like it or don’t like it means nothing to me. And that’s why I’m pessimistic about Las Vegas because those are our customers.

Those people out there hustling their business, and God forbid, showing that they made a million dollars as a partnership or as an individual. Yes, they’re the enemy now. They’re the rich folks. Well until we get over this, America’s in for hard times because what’s going to happen is the people that are going to suffer from what’s going on are the working class of America. My 15 or 20,000 employees, they’re the ones that are in trouble. The reason they’re in trouble is this demolition of the dollar is going to reduce the buying power of the working class of America as sure as we gave them a salary cut of 25%.

And that’s another thing that doesn’t seem to be clear to the brilliant people in Washington, D.C. They’re not just our customers, they are my employees. And until my employees get the drift of what’s being done to them, America’s in trouble. Next question.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Economy, Federal government, Not reported on CNN | Comments Off

Big Government Big Problems

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Behind Door Number One, we have tickets to the fabulous “Suddenly Chavez” starring everybody’s favorite socialist, President Hugo Chavez. Tell ‘em what they won, Hugo!

“I call on the whole country: ‘Switch off the lights.’”

The wonders of state-owned enterprise and the fruits of socialism.

TRINIDAD-AMERICAS-SUMMIT-CHAVEZ-OBAMA

And, behind Door Number Two, we have tickets to D.C.’s very own “Global Warming on Ice” starring everybody’s not-so-closet socialist, President Barack Obama. Tell ‘em what they won, Barack!

Please excuse the interruption, President Obama had to stay home today because it was a snow day. He and the other 230,000 Federal employees working in Washington D.C. have the day off. Cost to you and me: $100 MILLION (for the day). I’ll save you the time of doing the math — that works out to about $90K average annual comp (before benefits and payroll taxes) per Federal employee.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Federal government | Comments Off

Yeah, I’m the taxman

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
- The Beatles

Here are some of the new taxes Obama has proposed so far. Note that these tax increases exclude the hundreds of billions worth of new taxes that would be part of Obamacare. Of course, they also exclude what could be trillions of dollars from every good socialist’s wet dream, Cap and Tax (a dream perhaps shared by Bin Laden).

From Breitbart:

  • Raise the top two income tax rates for individuals, from 33 percent and 35 percent, to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively. Unless Congress intervenes, those rates will rise next Jan. 1 when Bush’s tax cuts expire. That government would reap $365 billion over the next decade.
  • Limit the itemized tax deductions high earners can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes, raising about $210 billion for the next decade.
  • Increase the top capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The proposal would raise about $105 billion.
  • Impose a “financial crisis responsibility fee” on large financial institutions, raising $90 billion over the next decade.
  • Restrict the ability of international companies to defer taxes on profits made overseas, raising about $26 billion over the next decade.
  • Impose a total of about $39 billion in tax increases on oil, gas and coal companies over the next decade.
  • Change the way profits made by investment fund managers are taxed, raising an additional $24 billion over the next decade.

To be fair, there are a few tax cuts. However, note that none of these qualify as effectively new tax cuts.

From Breitbart:

  • Make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent, saving businesses about $83 billion over the next decade.
  • Extend a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up depreciation through 2010, saving them $20 billion over the next decade.
  • Repeal a widely ignored law that taxes the personal use of company-issued cell phones like other fringe benefits, saving taxpayers $2.8 billion over 10 years.

Now, there are a few real tax cuts. However, always the good class warrior, Obama Zedong saved all those for his primary constituent class.

From Breitbart:

  • The Making Work Pay tax credit provides families with up to $800 a year and individuals up to $400 a year . Extending the tax credit through 2011 would save them $31 billion.
  • The capital gains tax hike does NOT apply to families making less than $250,000 or individuals making less than $200,000.

So, the worst part of all this is that Obama is still projecting not just a deficit for 2011, but a massive deficit of a whopping $1.3 TRILLION. THAT’S ALMOST 10% OF GDP!!!!

Could I interest you in a nice shiny new Treasury bond? We have an extensive selection.

if you drive a car, car; – I’ll tax the street;
if you try to sit, sit; – I’ll tax your seat;
if you get too cold, cold; – I’ll tax the heat;
if you take a walk, walk; – I’ll tax your feet.
- The Beatles

Tags: ,
Posted in Economy, Federal government | Comments Off

U.S. Debt: Tick Tock Tick Tock

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I haven’t yet read the New York Times best seller, This Time is Different by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, but I plan to. Reinhart and Rogoff, two well-pedigreed economists, have analyzed over 250 financial crises in 66 countries over 800 years.

One of their key conclusions:

“But highly leveraged economies, particularly those in which continual rollover of short-term debt is sustained only by confidence in relatively illiquid underlying assets, seldom survive forever, particularly if leverage continues to grow unchecked.

This time may seem different, but all too often a deeper look shows it is not. Encouragingly, history does point to warning signs that policy makers can look at to assess risk – if only they do not become too drunk with their credit bubble – fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, ‘This time is different.’”

Sound familiar?

jm012210image001_5F00_5FD82FE4
Chart from John Mauldin’s redistribution of work by Van Hoisington and Lacy Hunt.

Are we there yet?

How can we as a nation possibly contemplate spending trillions of dollars on some convoluted new government handout when we haven’t even figured out how to pay for social security and medicare AND have a national debt of ~$12 trillion that is rapidly approaching our GDP of ~$14 trillion? We quite literally cannot afford our own government. When will somebody say when? When will bond investors say when?

Do Obama and his socialist brethren truly believe “this time IS different”? Do they just not care? Or, worse, do they want to topple America?

When Obama stands in front of the country and deceitfully proclaims that it’s time for Republicans to do what’s right for the country, just what exactly does he mean? When Nancy Pelosi says that she will pass Pelosicare for the American people, what does she mean?

Do they want us to take direction from the government debt gluttons of Japan who continue to lead their country out of its own debt crisis 20 years after the fact?

I for one will not willingly choose to live the life depicted below nor the one that will likely follow in the years ahead for the Japanese.

commentary010510

Tags: , ,
Posted in Economy, Federal government, Not reported on CNN | Comments Off

Obama Freezing Federal Budget – The Truth

Monday, January 25th, 2010

So Obama says he’s going to freeze the Federal budget. That would be a great start. Unfortunately, Obama’s not telling us the whole truth. What he really means to say is that he will ask Congress to freeze 16% of it.

2009 Federal Budget Breakdown

Worse, that 16% shrinks to an even more insignificant number once you add in Obama’s $787 billion of “stimulus”. And then, of course, there’s the nearly $800 billion of TARP and the literally hundreds of billions we’re giving to Fannie and Freddie.

How about cutting the 57% of the budget for socialist welfare and wealth redistribution programs (depicted in cheery tones of gray)? A good place to start would be the $80+ billion we’ll be shelling out this year for Federal employee pensions. I don’t know about you, but I ain’t got no stinking pension.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Economy, Federal government, Not reported on CNN | Comments Off

Join the beast: Feds make 75% more than private employees

Monday, December 14th, 2009

From USA Today (www.usatoday.com):

“The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker’s pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.”

If that doesn’t turn your stomach, this will:

  • 19% of federal employees make salaries of $100,000 or more.
  • Worse: That number jumped from 14% in the summer of 2008 when the recession was just getting rolling.

    • All those stats are before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. How much do you make?

    Perhaps a more important question, how many jobs do federal employees create? How much economic growth do they create? What’s the ROI on the 1,690 employees at the Transportation Department getting paid more than $170,000?

    Seems like there should be people protesting outside the homes of these federal “fat cats”.

    Oh, one more thing:
    “Federal workers owe more than $3 billion in income taxes they failed to pay in 2008.”

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Economy, Federal government | Comments Off

    Good investment: $400,000 per job “created/ saved”

    Monday, December 14th, 2009

    Obama has a fancy website for his stimulus plan at www.recovery.gov. It’s quite nice and very web 2.0. The recovery.gov site and the “Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board” even have their very own presences on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube. Really! I’m serious! Go see your hard-earned tax dollars at work and become a “fan” of the Recovery Act on Facebook. It may not provide a good ROI on our money, but at least it’s cool. Or is it?

    Moving on, this is an interesting piece of propaganda. Obama signed the beast on February 13, 2009. According to the site, ten months later, the Feds have gotten around to spending 31% of the $787 billion, or $241.9 billion. That quarter trillion dollars of new debt has “created or saved” thousands of jobs – 640,329 as of October 30, 2009. Wow. That’s a lot of jobs.

    Unfortunately, it’s a pretty horrible deal: each job has cost us $378,000. With the average private sector worker earning about $40,000 one might expect to see 6,047,000 jobs. That’s almost 10 times more jobs! Looks like we’re being set up for some more stimulus. Will see more Federal spending on jobs when there is still half a trillion dollars of the Recovery Act left to spend?

    It Gets Worse
    As reported at www.usnews.com, according to South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson:

    “The reality of the situation is that Recovery.gov, the official administration website charged with reporting abuse, was its own worst offender. It is full of fake stimulus jobs in fake congressional districts. The Government Accountability Office says that one out of every 10 jobs created by the stimulus are also fake.”

    Yep, so that would mean that each job “created or saved” actually cost us $420,000. A bargain at twice the price. How many more jobs can we afford to create or save?

    Of course, there was also Obama’s pledge that the Recovery Act would hold the country at 8% unemployment instead of 9%. Last I checked, we were above 10%. Strong work all around.

    One fundamental problem with the Act is that it’s largely income redistribution disguised as stimulus. Based on data from the Act’s sponsors, it appears that income redistribution does not create jobs.

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Economy, Not reported on CNN | Comments Off

    Obesity and healthcare

    Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

    fatamerica2

    Obesity drives $39 billion of annual medicare and medicaid expenses (graphic).

    Is there anything in either Pelosi’s or Reid’s versions of Obamacare that addresses this? They are after all healthcare bills so one could reasonably expect the legislation to improve healthcare if not health. Of course, the legislation is also supposed to reduce healthcare costs nationally. If that is, in fact, the goal, this would seem like a good place to start.

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in Healthcare | Comments Off

    Newer Entries »