S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Another way to look at America is it's like a business with 200 employees and you have cut salaries to the bone (and raided the pension plan) but your minimal outflows are $1M a month and your inflows are only $800K (20% deficit) a month and the boss's salary is $200K and month and there are 2 top execs making $100K a month and 7 managers making $25K a month and 30 top workers making $5,000 a month and 160 workers making $1,400 a month and $100K in overhead ($1M total). And, by the way, this is "well distributed" for an average corporation (or country) where, the average CEO makes $11.4M, which is as much as 300 average workers!
Well, you can’t cut overhead because it’s leased and you need the space, etc. and your equipment and infrastructure is already falling apart from neglect. And you can’t pay the workers less as you are bumping up against minimum wage and you’ve already cut all their benefits and stolen the pension money to keep things running.
What more can you do? Well the solution to management is obvious – cut some workers! While that might work for a company, as a country we are "stuck" with the people we fire so now America has to take a real look at the salaries of the boss, the two top two executives, the 7 managers, and the 30 "upper middle class" workers, which account for 65% of the companies expenses and, so far, haven’t been affected by cutbacks.
In fact, in 10 years of salary cutbacks and layoffs (after we opened that disastrous ski store in Iraq, which the board of directors refuses to close), the company is producing less than it used to but, for some insane reason, the top 10 employees RAISED their salaries from $300,000 to $475,000 a month as a "reward" for the savings they made cutting back 10% of the workforce and cutting salaries and benefits of the remaining 190 employees to the bone (in real money terms, they now make less money than they did in 1970).
There will be no victory dances by the bottom 95% when the top 5% finally realize they need to make sacrifices too. Poor people will not feel better because it doesn’t help them one bit when it’s finally our turn to pay. I am very positive that our Government will make absolutely sure that they don’t derive one bit of benefit from the bare minimum it takes for us to keep the "business" of America running.
Trust me, within the top 10 employees, if there’s a way the top 3 can screw the next 7 over – they will! And within the top 3 – well, needless to say the top 1 is the last guy that’s going to put his hand into his pockets, even though he’s pulling a a salary that is the entirety of the deficit.
I love the people in the top 10% who want to blame "this mess" on others: Did you vote for Reagan or Bush or Bush? Did you vote for local people who said you didn’t have to pay taxes? Did you vote for people who wanted to build a working base or make our country competitive in some field besides banking and war?
Did you cheer for a war without paying for the war? Did you object to the fact that SS and Medicare were insolvent long-term and demand your representatives fix the problem by raising contributions or did you expect that cutting benefits below the poverty line would solve the problem? Did it bother you that health care costs were taking over 15% of our GDP or was that just a problem for our 40M uninsured?
Did you care that companies like GE do 1% of the nation’s total GDP in business ($150Bn a year), pay out tens of Billions in executive salaries but not a penny of taxes or did you tell your accountant to find you some of them loopholes? Did you worry that all our manufacturing jobs were moving overseas or did you enjoy the "savings" while the middle class crumbled around you.
Sure the top 1% have amassed a great fortune by stripping the wealth away from the bottom 99% but they wrecked the country to do it.
Now all the fools and their money will be easily parted but that’s what happens to "leaders" (business or government) who don’t actually lead but instead take whatever they can like a parasite - until the day they finally kill the host.
Well, the host IS dying and to top 1% are still killing it and they are about to attack the next 10% (as I have long warned) rather than make sacrifices to save the host body we call America. Your remaining choice is to be smarter than a virus or to go down with the ship. Think of that when you vote.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
A poker game is a great analogy with various rounds in which the "winners" bring the chips up to the next level tables. That's what this economy is - You start with 1.4M tables of 10 workers each and 90% of them lose in round one (the bottom 90%) and all of their chips are taken by the winners to the next level where there are 140,000 tables of 10 and just 14,000 of those people take their chips and advance to the top 1%.
Fortunately, in the second round, the losers get a consolation prize that is enough to live on. That way, as soon at the bottom 90% have some money again - they can jump back on the lower tables and rake more profits up to the top!
In the third round, there are just 1,400 tables of 10 and the fighting is rough but even the losers get a nice prize. Enough to keep them near the top so they never have to compete at the lower levels.
Round 4, just 140 tables of 10 left and we're into the top 0.01% of our nation's wage earners. Even the losers here end up with 1,000 times more than people at the entry tables have to play with. These are long, drawn out games because all the players have tremendous stacks of chips, making bets of millions at a time as the stacks move back and forth.
Finally in round 5, there are just 14 tables of 10 - the top half of the Forbes 400, who earn an average of over $1Bn per year each. Every 60 minutes, these guys make $500,000, over twice as much as the entire betting pool of the first two round tables combined! These guys will never see a round 3 table again but they live in dire fear of getting knocked back to round 4 and they'll do anything to win - even cheat, so watch them closely!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Good question as the US borrows $120Bn a month so, if we hit the debt limit and can't borrow any money, $120Bn a month of Government spending needs to be cut immediately. Assuming we continue to service $30Bn of monthly debt, that leaves $270Bn of monthly spending to be cut 44%. If we don't defund our $70Bn worth of military spending, that leaves just $200Bn a month of government spending that needs to be cut 60% immediately.
Amazingly, people can't do this simple math to see how ridiculous it is to say that it wouldn't matter if we don't raise the debt ceiling and it is astounding that an elected member of Congress could even consider this alternative.
It's like running up $100,000 in credit card bills and THEN calling the bank and everyone you have made other commitments to and saying "I'm sorry but my family voted not to extend our debt ceiling". See if that "doesn't matter."
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Hopefully we will - the Republican Congress has a record high 82% disapproval rating with just 3 months to go before voter pull the lever. I doubt this weekend's news will improve their chances for re-election this year.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
"Why don't all governments in the US agree to spend only what they take in on the revenue side?"
Because then we couldn't have gone to War with Iraq (because 4 planes with 19 Saudis attacked us) and given $3Tn to Defense Contractors and run up $3Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
Because then we couldn't have given $3Tn in tax breaks to the top 10% and Corporations and run up another $3Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
Because then we couldn't have given Banks $2Tn in Bailouts and run up another $2Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Also, let's not forget the reality of DISPOSABLE INCOME. As noted above, the top 400 people make and average of $350M PER YEAR or $140Bn. That's out of 140M US families, not individuals - another way Conservatives fudge the numbers.
So the bottom 10% families essentially make ZERO. The next 10% make under $12,500 a year.
So 28M FAMILIES make no more than $175Bn TOTAL. I'm sure they are all lazy and worthless and whatever other dehumanizing BS some of you like to hurl at the less fortunate but the reality is - what on earth would you expect them to contribute to the tax base?
The AVERAGE income of the bottom 80% of FAMILIES (not wage earners) in 2010 was $31,244 from which SS and Medicare are deducted as well as workman's comp, etc. They pay the same 6% sales tax as rich people and the same 3% flat state taxes so, even if they are not unfortunate enough to own homes, which also get all sorts of taxes - we're talking about 20% of their income removed before they even pay income tax so now we're down to about $25,000 less about a 20% tax bite from Uncle Sam. That leaves the bottom 112M Families putting up $560Bn of INCOME taxes but INCOME taxes are just 43% of the $2.2Tn in taxes collected ($946Bn) so the bottom 80% of families are paying 60% of the income taxes.
Even worse, the bottom 90%, who earn under $164,647 per year, paid 80% or the SS and Medicare payments DESPITE making less than 30% of the money.
Can the bottom 80%, who earn 20% of the money, afford to pay more or should, perhaps, people who make $350M PER YEAR and pay 16.6% average tax rates ($23.25Bn) perhaps pay 50% ($70Bn) which would leave them with JUST $175Bn a year left to spend?
I know, think of the hardship! Simply asking to top 10% to keep paying the SS and Medicare deduction on incomes over $110,000 would make the entire system solvent going forward. Our insane national debate is that, rather than ask people with $220,000 to pay $10,000 more towards SS and Medicare and save the system - we "need" to cut back on benefits for the 60M people who need them to survive. What a joke!
And ALL of this is just a distraction, a smoke screen to mask the real criminals - Corporations! Corporations paid a grand total of $192Bn in taxes last year, just 7% of total tax receipts, despite booking RECORD profits (and those record profits are net of losses of other companies).
That's another great Conservative trick, they talk about Corporate profits as if the $100Bn loss at AIG, FRE, FNM, GM... allows companies with $100Bn worth of profits to pay nothing as it "averages out". It does not, the PROFITS of the Fortune 500 alone was over $1Tn last year and that's AFTER taxes and AFTER their loopholes and AFTER depreciation etc that allows companies like GE, with $150Bn in sales and $30Bn in operating profits to pay just $1Bn in taxes (3.3%) even though they declared a bottom line income of $11.3Bn AFTER those taxes.
Total US Corporate Profits were over $3Tn last year (the official figure is $1.65Tn net of losses at other companies).
Simply asking corporations to pay the same 35% that citizens pay would raise $1Tn in Government revenues and balance the budget and that's WITHOUT taking away their precious deductions.
THAT's the conversation America needs to be having. Do you want a very simple solution? A VAT tax (that most of the World has) that simply drops 20% of every transaction into the Government's coffers. In a $15Tn GDP, that's $3Tn a year and a balanced budget. Add a simple 10% tax to the top 10% incomes (including Corporate profits) and we bring in another $1Tn a year - pay off our debt in 15 years and the bottom 90% don't have to pay any taxes at all - except for the 20% when they buy something.
This is not complicated folks - just stop fighting among each other and focus your anger on the real issues. The Corporate Media is there to make sure you NEVER ask these questions and we need to break this cycle if we are going to save this country!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
This is an EXCELLENT point Techy but your math is wrong and I must correct you. You are using a simple interest calculation but check it out using a compound rate calculator and you'll be sick about it.
Over 42 years, you put away $206,000 but, we can't say $5,000 a year because you almost certainly earned less at the beginning so let's, for argument's sake, just plug in $0 down at just a $4,000 per year annual addition at a 4% rate and just compound it one time a year.
Even ignoring $42,000 of your contribution simply because it's too complicated to factor in, you SHOULD have $436,049.53 in your SS account.
If we put back the $1,000 a year we ditched and the additional $1,500 a year paid to Medicare and do the same 4% calculation at $6,500 a month - we find that the Government should be holding $708,580.48 of your money at this point.
So not only SHOULD the system be exceptionally well funded but it should have a huge surplus because most people only live long enough to collect 9 years of those payments of $30,000 a year. Yes, some get more but many get nothing as well and why are we using 4% when 30-year TBills have paid more than that over 42 years? Change that interest figure to 5% and that's $922,956.70 that someone stole out of your "lock box"....
Rich people telling Americans they need to cut back on "Entitlement Spending" are like thieves getting caught and the judge sets the thief free and tells the victims they need to just suck it up and learn to live with less. Oh wait, it's not "like" that - that's what it is...
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Then the question is - why not?
I will be very happy to insure you that the World will not be completely destroyed by asteroids, aliens or even the sun exploding (if you feel those events may impact your business) and even against the total collapse of the global financial system in exchange for money I can use now.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
www.philstockworld.com.../
Also, there's a free trial of Stock World Weekly, which has an excellent analysis as well:
www.philstockworld.com.../
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Well, you can’t cut overhead because it’s leased and you need the space, etc. and your equipment and infrastructure is already falling apart from neglect. And you can’t pay the workers less as you are bumping up against minimum wage and you’ve already cut all their benefits and stolen the pension money to keep things running.
What more can you do? Well the solution to management is obvious – cut some workers! While that might work for a company, as a country we are "stuck" with the people we fire so now America has to take a real look at the salaries of the boss, the two top two executives, the 7 managers, and the 30 "upper middle class" workers, which account for 65% of the companies expenses and, so far, haven’t been affected by cutbacks.
In fact, in 10 years of salary cutbacks and layoffs (after we opened that disastrous ski store in Iraq, which the board of directors refuses to close), the company is producing less than it used to but, for some insane reason, the top 10 employees RAISED their salaries from $300,000 to $475,000 a month as a "reward" for the savings they made cutting back 10% of the workforce and cutting salaries and benefits of the remaining 190 employees to the bone (in real money terms, they now make less money than they did in 1970).
There will be no victory dances by the bottom 95% when the top 5% finally realize they need to make sacrifices too. Poor people will not feel better because it doesn’t help them one bit when it’s finally our turn to pay. I am very positive that our Government will make absolutely sure that they don’t derive one bit of benefit from the bare minimum it takes for us to keep the "business" of America running.
Trust me, within the top 10 employees, if there’s a way the top 3 can screw the next 7 over – they will! And within the top 3 – well, needless to say the top 1 is the last guy that’s going to put his hand into his pockets, even though he’s pulling a a salary that is the entirety of the deficit.
I love the people in the top 10% who want to blame "this mess" on others: Did you vote for Reagan or Bush or Bush? Did you vote for local people who said you didn’t have to pay taxes? Did you vote for people who wanted to build a working base or make our country competitive in some field besides banking and war?
Did you cheer for a war without paying for the war? Did you object to the fact that SS and Medicare were insolvent long-term and demand your representatives fix the problem by raising contributions or did you expect that cutting benefits below the poverty line would solve the problem? Did it bother you that health care costs were taking over 15% of our GDP or was that just a problem for our 40M uninsured?
Did you care that companies like GE do 1% of the nation’s total GDP in business ($150Bn a year), pay out tens of Billions in executive salaries but not a penny of taxes or did you tell your accountant to find you some of them loopholes? Did you worry that all our manufacturing jobs were moving overseas or did you enjoy the "savings" while the middle class crumbled around you.
Sure the top 1% have amassed a great fortune by stripping the wealth away from the bottom 99% but they wrecked the country to do it.
Now all the fools and their money will be easily parted but that’s what happens to "leaders" (business or government) who don’t actually lead but instead take whatever they can like a parasite - until the day they finally kill the host.
Well, the host IS dying and to top 1% are still killing it and they are about to attack the next 10% (as I have long warned) rather than make sacrifices to save the host body we call America. Your remaining choice is to be smarter than a virus or to go down with the ship. Think of that when you vote.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Fortunately, in the second round, the losers get a consolation prize that is enough to live on. That way, as soon at the bottom 90% have some money again - they can jump back on the lower tables and rake more profits up to the top!
In the third round, there are just 1,400 tables of 10 and the fighting is rough but even the losers get a nice prize. Enough to keep them near the top so they never have to compete at the lower levels.
Round 4, just 140 tables of 10 left and we're into the top 0.01% of our nation's wage earners. Even the losers here end up with 1,000 times more than people at the entry tables have to play with. These are long, drawn out games because all the players have tremendous stacks of chips, making bets of millions at a time as the stacks move back and forth.
Finally in round 5, there are just 14 tables of 10 - the top half of the Forbes 400, who earn an average of over $1Bn per year each. Every 60 minutes, these guys make $500,000, over twice as much as the entire betting pool of the first two round tables combined! These guys will never see a round 3 table again but they live in dire fear of getting knocked back to round 4 and they'll do anything to win - even cheat, so watch them closely!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
8-)
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Amazingly, people can't do this simple math to see how ridiculous it is to say that it wouldn't matter if we don't raise the debt ceiling and it is astounding that an elected member of Congress could even consider this alternative.
It's like running up $100,000 in credit card bills and THEN calling the bank and everyone you have made other commitments to and saying "I'm sorry but my family voted not to extend our debt ceiling". See if that "doesn't matter."
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Because then we couldn't have gone to War with Iraq (because 4 planes with 19 Saudis attacked us) and given $3Tn to Defense Contractors and run up $3Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
Because then we couldn't have given $3Tn in tax breaks to the top 10% and Corporations and run up another $3Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
Because then we couldn't have given Banks $2Tn in Bailouts and run up another $2Tn worth of debt on US Citizens.
Come on - do you want to ruin all the fun?!?
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
So the bottom 10% families essentially make ZERO. The next 10% make under $12,500 a year.
www.lesjones.com/2011/.../
So 28M FAMILIES make no more than $175Bn TOTAL. I'm sure they are all lazy and worthless and whatever other dehumanizing BS some of you like to hurl at the less fortunate but the reality is - what on earth would you expect them to contribute to the tax base?
The AVERAGE income of the bottom 80% of FAMILIES (not wage earners) in 2010 was $31,244 from which SS and Medicare are deducted as well as workman's comp, etc. They pay the same 6% sales tax as rich people and the same 3% flat state taxes so, even if they are not unfortunate enough to own homes, which also get all sorts of taxes - we're talking about 20% of their income removed before they even pay income tax so now we're down to about $25,000 less about a 20% tax bite from Uncle Sam. That leaves the bottom 112M Families putting up $560Bn of INCOME taxes but INCOME taxes are just 43% of the $2.2Tn in taxes collected ($946Bn) so the bottom 80% of families are paying 60% of the income taxes.
scienceblogs.com/dispa...
Even worse, the bottom 90%, who earn under $164,647 per year, paid 80% or the SS and Medicare payments DESPITE making less than 30% of the money.
Can the bottom 80%, who earn 20% of the money, afford to pay more or should, perhaps, people who make $350M PER YEAR and pay 16.6% average tax rates ($23.25Bn) perhaps pay 50% ($70Bn) which would leave them with JUST $175Bn a year left to spend?
I know, think of the hardship! Simply asking to top 10% to keep paying the SS and Medicare deduction on incomes over $110,000 would make the entire system solvent going forward. Our insane national debate is that, rather than ask people with $220,000 to pay $10,000 more towards SS and Medicare and save the system - we "need" to cut back on benefits for the 60M people who need them to survive. What a joke!
And ALL of this is just a distraction, a smoke screen to mask the real criminals - Corporations! Corporations paid a grand total of $192Bn in taxes last year, just 7% of total tax receipts, despite booking RECORD profits (and those record profits are net of losses of other companies).
That's another great Conservative trick, they talk about Corporate profits as if the $100Bn loss at AIG, FRE, FNM, GM... allows companies with $100Bn worth of profits to pay nothing as it "averages out". It does not, the PROFITS of the Fortune 500 alone was over $1Tn last year and that's AFTER taxes and AFTER their loopholes and AFTER depreciation etc that allows companies like GE, with $150Bn in sales and $30Bn in operating profits to pay just $1Bn in taxes (3.3%) even though they declared a bottom line income of $11.3Bn AFTER those taxes.
Total US Corporate Profits were over $3Tn last year (the official figure is $1.65Tn net of losses at other companies).
www.nytimes.com/2010/1...
Simply asking corporations to pay the same 35% that citizens pay would raise $1Tn in Government revenues and balance the budget and that's WITHOUT taking away their precious deductions.
www.bea.gov/newsreleas...
THAT's the conversation America needs to be having. Do you want a very simple solution? A VAT tax (that most of the World has) that simply drops 20% of every transaction into the Government's coffers. In a $15Tn GDP, that's $3Tn a year and a balanced budget. Add a simple 10% tax to the top 10% incomes (including Corporate profits) and we bring in another $1Tn a year - pay off our debt in 15 years and the bottom 90% don't have to pay any taxes at all - except for the 20% when they buy something.
This is not complicated folks - just stop fighting among each other and focus your anger on the real issues. The Corporate Media is there to make sure you NEVER ask these questions and we need to break this cycle if we are going to save this country!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
www.moneychimp.com/cal...
Over 42 years, you put away $206,000 but, we can't say $5,000 a year because you almost certainly earned less at the beginning so let's, for argument's sake, just plug in $0 down at just a $4,000 per year annual addition at a 4% rate and just compound it one time a year.
Even ignoring $42,000 of your contribution simply because it's too complicated to factor in, you SHOULD have $436,049.53 in your SS account.
If we put back the $1,000 a year we ditched and the additional $1,500 a year paid to Medicare and do the same 4% calculation at $6,500 a month - we find that the Government should be holding $708,580.48 of your money at this point.
So not only SHOULD the system be exceptionally well funded but it should have a huge surplus because most people only live long enough to collect 9 years of those payments of $30,000 a year. Yes, some get more but many get nothing as well and why are we using 4% when 30-year TBills have paid more than that over 42 years? Change that interest figure to 5% and that's $922,956.70 that someone stole out of your "lock box"....
Rich people telling Americans they need to cut back on "Entitlement Spending" are like thieves getting caught and the judge sets the thief free and tells the victims they need to just suck it up and learn to live with less. Oh wait, it's not "like" that - that's what it is...
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
I will be very happy to insure you that the World will not be completely destroyed by asteroids, aliens or even the sun exploding (if you feel those events may impact your business) and even against the total collapse of the global financial system in exchange for money I can use now.
Big Pharma: M&A Targets and a Pfizer Problem [View article]