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Irene sent this Brietbart article:

US GOVERNMENT IS WORLD'S 3RD LARGEST ECONOMY

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by MIKE FLYNN 31 Mar 2014 POST A COMMENT

Monday's open enrollment deadline for ObamaCare, which, with its subsidies and tax credits, represents the largest expansion of government, is a good time to assess the total scale of government in the US. 

Appreciating the full scope of the US government is difficult, because its activities are undertaken at the federal, state, and local levels. Adding all of this together, government in the US consumes more than $6 trillion a year. This makes the US government the world's 3rd largest economy. 

The United States economy produces just over $16 trillion in total goods and services every year. China's economic output is, by the most reliable measure, over $8 trillion. The next largest national economy is Japan, producing around $5 trillion in total economic output. Federal, state, and local governments in the US, however, consume more than $6.2 trillion. US government spending, in fact, is about the same as the total economic output of France and Germany combined. 

Getting even a rough grasp of total government spending in the US is tricky. One must navigate multiple data sources and be sure to subtract intergovernmental transfers. The federal government provides more than half a trillion dollars to state governments. State governments transfer nearly an equal amount to local governments. States also have a number of trust funds that aren't included in their general fund expenditures.

Total federal outlays in 2012 were $3.5 trillion, roughly the size of the German economy. (Consider that; It takes the total economic output of every German, who have the 4th largest national economy, to finance our federal government.) After subtracting federal grants and transfers, state governments in the US consumed just over $1.6 trillion, which is roughly the economy of Spain or India. 

Local governments collected revenue of around $1.1 trillion in 2011 (the last year for which information is available). There are more than 90,000 units of local government in the US. 

(Note: Figures for state and local governments are based on revenue collected rather than expenditures. Under current reporting, one can account for intergovernmental transfers in revenue reported, but not in expenditures. For example, one can determine how much local governments receive from state governments for public education, but local governments report the total amount spent on education, not the funding source of the spending.)

Taken together, government in the United States, at all levels, consumes about 40% of the overall economy. Considering only of the federal government or individual states obscures the complete footprint of government in the US.  

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EC:

Another option to just getting yourself safe, is to crush the system as it stands. Pay less tax, retire early (and get the money out of the 401K), get food stamps, get out of the U.S. Dollar, get every freebie offered to the dead weight. Demand reassessment of your land. Take the entire system down from within - that is what the Marxists did, it was a documented strategy,  so return the favor.  Individual action, no matter how small it seems, is critical.

Those with cash are the targets for government. Home owners and retirement funds are next. All government activity is about buying lower class voters, feeding banks, the military/industrial complex, academia and other collectivists and oligarchs - it needs your money.  

Look at all the taxes you pay and stop. For example, if you don't need to drive - don't. The tax revenue from fuel is confiscatory.  Don't buy new crap.  Don't buy a sandwich when you can buy the real food as prepared food has a high tax on it. Avoid hotels, especially expensive ones.  For that matter, avoid NYC and other big socialist cities that exist to take money from citizens. Drive carefully as the car is a major source of intrusion into your life.

Get your money out of the country or out of dollars and use all the services the socialists offer to the lower classes. Get those food stamps, fuel supplements, and so on. You are not encouraging the system, it is time to break it.  You are merely claiming some of your money back.

If most people decided to not drive for a few weeks, the state would begin to collapse. Please, quit smoking - it is your patriotic duty.  

Don't apply moral, Protestant values. Those are the ones that destroyed your nation. The enemy is in control, so resist.  Avoiding taxes is legal if you barter, so practice that art.

Few can do it, but if you can, sue government departments and individuals, as appropriate. Go to Town Meetings and complain all the time. Vote against all teachers running for the school board - an absurd conflict of interest.

 One needs a lawyer, usually, to sue, so if you can afford it, do so as a patriotic act. You can pick one of a thousand violations of the law and Constitution to sue about.  Passive resistance is much safer than what will follow.

The ultimate freedom fighters weapons are to starve the monster and to vote out everyone. Forget parties, just say no.  (OK, you can avoid the Communist, Socialist Progressive, and Working Families Parties. They all support the collective over individual freedom)

Pass this along to those who are low information voters.  It is their future that is at stake and they are committing suicide. 

Real Time Demonstration Project: Vermont as a Mental Institution

I remain, for now, a Vermont citizen. This hasn't been easy, as I moved around often.

In a few years, I have seen the state degenerate from the famous bastion of self reliance, self government, local schools, strong family and community, and distaste for flat-landers to a hide-out for the marginally aware, lazy, sycophants.

One can look at the University of Vermont which abandoned its high status, as low-life academics infected the place, and is now a tree-hugger camp for drones from New Jersey and NYC. The sad thing is these academics actually think they are superior intellects, not having ever competed in the community.

So you Vermonters understand, you paid for an academic, Marxist/touchy-feelie/whatever-the-hell-they-are, band of subversives who used your tax money to take control of the state. They have succeeded, chump. Got taxes? They buy votes by giving away shinny pennies, thereby driving out the business community.

The take over is the same old Marxist story: control the schools, centralize the schools and government, raise taxes, create a dependency, and enhance leftist voters - the "social contract" was part of that and the gay community tends to support Marxists for some reason. There is no interest in fair debate; rather all subversion is is acceptable to "play the system" and subvert is from within. Essentially, the operative concept is hustle the marks who live by those old-fashioned rules and assume honor in others.

This is childish, self indulgent behavior that in adults is a mental illness. It promotes not contribution, but exploitation. These people are never happy, always pushing others for more. This was exact opposite of Vermont just thirty years ago. These are the people our forefathers fled in old Europe.
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So, this morning, I was listening to VPR, Vermont People's Radio. The station was on because I turned on the BBC late at night (it sounds conservative, now).  However, this morning the Vermont insipid news was on.

I stopped what I was doing and listened to a report:

Vermont has released results of... bla bla, same drone stuff...that Vermont's homeless increased 25% in ONE YEAR!

I was amazed; I was amazed VPR would report such news. I listened as this report might indicate to normal people that Vermont was in dire trouble. I forgot about about the mental illness of the left. Snap!

No, the point of the study was to promote more housing subsidies!

Just another made up crisis designed to justify theft of citizen's money. It did't matter, of course, that Vermont is now broke because of the vast ocean of people who refuse to work.  It, now, leads the country in drug addiction! This means we need to offer free drugs in addition to the free hypodermic needles.  This is the non-logic that we should not permit to exist just because we want to be nice to nitwits.

Yesterday, in this blog, we saw "democracies" die in about 200 years because people devolve into apathy. Dull witted, self-indulgent people will vote themselves money from the distant "government" and there are always leaders willing to control money gateway. After all, they have to help the children, don't they? One mistake is the, now, state sponsored abortion. This may sound like fun, but the left is reducing the number of future tax payers.  They will be like Shakers and not reproduce themselves, either.

As very few natural-born Vermonters remain, the state is now an excellent test tube to measure the destruction of a people through better collectivism. The drifters stay in Vermont even in sub-zero weather as the state keeps them warm. The state, in a real sense, being the children of the drifters who will pay for the theft. This is Vermont today. We need a new string of songs about the People's Vermont.

The tricks of the trade of oligarchs are the same in Vermont as Venezuela and too numerous to mention, here.

The very rich are now moving in and have manipulated the law and their lives to avoid the taxes that fall upon the middle class.  Same old story.

To understand where we are going in the U.S. one needs to understand the true meaning of the VPR news report:  the avoidance of logic, without hesitation, regarding certain matters. Where the emotional/religious principles can be raised, no matter how stupid, they are raised and defended. Logic is for long-dead or long-fled white farmers.

The problem with apathetic people is they let the least-common denominator of society talk and talk and talk and take control of our lives. We do not want to be confrontational or impolite; this is a simple human tendency. Mentally healthy people do not plan their lives around being installed in an office. Power seeking is an indicator of mental illness.

We have work to do. We are quiet and politically correct.  We are trained to let deviants prance about; in turn, they actually think they are sane and deserve to lead. They bury wood so the carbon will not be released, or something like that. If it weren't for those damn trees, there would be no carbon. Oh, I forgot about the damn dinosaurs who died and left carbon laying around.

Look at the imbeciles that represent Vermont in Congress. They look up to Joe Biden for intellectual clarity.  To his credit, the perpetually miserable Bernie Sanders admits he is a Brooklyn Marxist.  He was raised to power serving as the socialist mayor of Burlington (aka University of Vermont.) The rest of the crowd are "liberals" and "progressives." They are all collectivists in the various shade of Marxism. They want to be in charge of the "masses," which, of course, does not describe them.

This has to stop. We have to reject stupidity, personal attacks, and emotional whining. Put the leftists into therapy, not in public office. Ultimately, the reason we are collapsing as a culture is a loss of a moral foundation. The apathetic have no opinion about morality and freedom.

Where one solidly believes in a morality and a higher standard to follow, then one is not engaged with petty theft and manipulation.  Where one has nothing meaningful in life, then control and theft become the goals of life.  Humans seem to need a "meaning." Where we create an animal society, our drives become those of animals, but this is unkind to animals who do not benefit from the ability to apply the mind to animal desires.

The leftists mock all religion for this reason - it is their one true enemy.  It is the reason it took so long for Marxist thought to infect the U.S. The KGB has been clear about this. First, the subversives had to kill off logical morality. They mock the family, priests, the Bible, and individual responsibility. All normal aspects of building a solid community are an interference to state control.

My advice, again, is register to vote and do so in the PRIMARIES.  Here is where your vote counts. When you get in the booth, unless someone screams about the law and profligate spending, vote against all incumbants.  If both major candidates are statist, then vote against the incumbent. Parties are nearly irrelevant. Do that every election. Its a first step.  If this makes sense to you, then you run.  You are qualified.

More can be done, but this is simple and effective step. If we do not do this, now, the next steps will not be simple and will be fraught with danger.

I like the idea of voting clubs. People should meet like they would in a stock buying club, discuss politics, and make investments in their future.

Khrushchev's Subversion Doesn't Require the USSR

c

  

The KGB's Plan:  Agent's Lecture

Putin of the KGB:

Post American History

Welcome to Obamacare: the unintended consequences.

Why Work:

I do like Kentucky.

What is hard to grok is Illinois. Its free money is only $13,580 per capita!

Then again, Kauai looks pretty good until the end, probably after my life:   $60,590.

In a window in town, Glens Falls, there is a display and the book open, pretending the imaginary window people read, is called:  Why Democracies Fail.  Read on Line

Without the strictures of a republic, oh, say a constitution, people will find out they can vote themselves money,  Ta Da: socialism - the tool of the oligarchy used to get state control via the little piggy theory (they are big piggies, so have an education, albeit immoral.)

Perhaps, a reader may think the U.S. is a republic. Welcome to the 20th Century where the progressives, Marxists, etc. had destroyed the republic. Time to study up: why the direct election of Senators was a mistake; why the income tax was a mistake; why there is an effort to control guns and speech; why we have a freedom from religion, not of religion. Etc Etc.  All that is necessary is people awake and vote out almost everyone, both parties. A good depression will help get us there.

I no longer see there is any stopping the piggy express. The tangled web cannot be undone; eventually, it will be destroyed, how is unknown, but you can't convince piggies to be more than they are.

A powerful depression might help; we will see. One can hope, I suppose. The cool thing is much of the world has learned from us and our past derailment of piggy history is not lost on other cultures.

Our founders were colonists to the English - it was the colonists who reminded England of the rights of individuals that they had lost to the crown, after centuries of fighting to gain them. One speech in Parliament, back then, praised the U.S. for upholding the liberal rights of the individual that used to be England.

Time for an I-Monastery.

State and Local Taxes: Confiscation for "The Children"

You may have seen this diagram before. I thought it appropriate to repeat because of the recent trend to show pictures and I won't make as many typos. The reason pictures are better than words is because you get exhausted typing up words.

So, all the gnashing of teeth about government and high taxes are, in a sense, misdirected. Of course, rarely those who run for office are worthy people and one should unroot the self-dealing politicians with personality defects.

(There is something to micro-expression theory, it seems)

62% of tax revenue is spent in the public schools.  Think about that as you drive by your massive local campus, at least outside the cities. Think about that as you compare your car to those found in the teacher's lot.

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Teachers come from teacher colleges where they learn teaching methods, not their subject, and are absorbed into the leftist, union paradigm. They like to hang inane banners in the halls.

The first year the statewide Massachusetts' teacher's test, for new graduates I believe, was given more than half FAILED. They were tested on competence in their area! You can see why teacher unions object to standardized tests. The recent terrible marks of students in New York State brought a union response that the teachers didn't have the ability to "prepare." You know what that means.

The teacher school graduates eventually become members of the school board in your town, they hire principals (statistically, a former gym teacher), they present political correctness, intellectual intolerance, amorality, and, worst of all, a lack of enthusiasm for learning.  They do protect children from the evils of religious notions of morality. They tell you cannot discuss morality as the Constitution bars discussion of religion in public schools, except, of course, Islam. I still haven't found that in the Constitution.

Part of the high cost of the schools is the copy machine and supplies. As the general rule is each class sits and does matching columns and fill in the blanks every day, at least, in the lower grades. This is astounding.

A friend who was a the operational manager of a school district mentioned the largest cost is busing. In the old days, an educated person taught substantive matters to small classes in the neighborhood; now, we have institutions run on the prison model where a massive bus system exists to twice a day carry the inmates.

To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.   Cato Institute  (and note the "median" private school number reduces the actual cost by eliminating very high tuition schools.)

Steven Jobs, back in the 1990s, told Wired Magazine that he sent his child to a private school and paid three thousand dollars, as I recall, more than the cost generated by a local public school. He asked, comparing public and private schools: would you spend an extra $3,000 to send your child to one of the best schools in the world?

Of further interest, he also stated that he was responsible for the worldwide use of the computer in school, more than anyone, and it was an educational mistake. To my experience, computers are an expensive form of baby sitting, just like matching columns.

Compare all this with the chatter you hear from teachers you know.  In the teacher's room they talk about their coming vacation, their tier, and target date of retirement.

You can see why the "teachers" in Wisconsin trespassed in the state's legislature, setup picket lines, and whined about the importance of education for the all-purpose totem: the children. Leftist unions of all sorts, from many states, actually brought on a recall election because the state decided not to require workers to be in the union.  They lost the election.

Al Schanker, who most people don't remember, was the father of the teachers' union movement in the 1960s. He was a communist from the University of Chicago who twice failed to obtain his PhD, even there; it was, as I recall from long ago, on Marx.

Teachers' unions are engaged in a leftist conspiracy to transfer property from productive home owners to fund socialists and their efforts. The average teacher, generally trying their best to be a professional, is, sadly, a useful idiot. The unions get them extremely good salaries and benefits. The union, generally forced on the teacher, gets its "taste."

There is likely no fixing this problem save the encroaching collapse of the economy. In the meantime, if you still care, home school and run for the local school board. The battle for the future begins in thousands of school board elections. The elite will have their Obama and Bush in the phony election game, but change will come from the bottom up.

Get out of your 401k, now. Take a penalty.

An article Greg sent in on the 401k being the next target of the socialists. I mentioned this a few months ago, which I highlight, here, to demonstrate I am not crazy.  

 

When I report on the few things I see that are going on, they sound so bizarre to many as to violate the "normalcy bias,"  i.e. just more conspiracy worries from Gene.  Put a post-it on your refrigerator:  these are not normal times.

The ultimate plan is to FORCE you to invest 5% of your salary into a retirement fund.  Recall, the forcedsocial security confiscations were put into a "trust fund" for your protection.  The trust fund was pushed aside and money taken.  There is no trust fund.  

The administrator of the proposed national retirement plan is, you guessed it, the Social Security Adminsitration.  The illusion being, again, that some trust fund will be created for your benefit, whereas the money will be used to pay for the Marxist programs. You see, all these obligations are guaranteed by the U.S.  Sure. Your heart medicine is not guaranteed.

Percentage of personal income taken by Social Security (combined and self employed):   15.3%

Average tax burden, for now, state and federal:  30.6%

Proposed 5% for forced investment in T Bills:       5%

Loss of income, right off the top:                         51.9%

Add sales tax, mortgage, insurance and you are a serf enjoying indebted servitude. Oh, you want to eat, get medical and home insurance?  We have been suffering so long, we don't remember that people used to have money at the end of the month, that people started new businesses and, not that long ago, could afford domestic help if they were upper middle class.  Now, the high income earners show off their new stove.

Real estate was always thought of the great investment, where your money was safe and grew.  If you still think that, get out a piece of paper and a pencil.

Ohhmmmm.  Happy people live longer, so I am going off for a coffee whilst smiling and humming. ...

In July 2008 the Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration calculated an unfunded obligation of $13.6 trillion for the Social Security program....(Wiki)

It is time to get out of any plan the government can grab. I would suggest taking your penalty, if any, and putting your assets in something that will not deteriorate if it is in dollars.  You will be better off even with the penalty.  You will get that back very quickly if you are out of dollars and free of the black hand of the Marx. If you think you should stay the course to be a good citizen, you are a chump.  Oohhmmmm.

The key is what to do with the money.  One apparently reasonable place to put cash is in TIPS which are supposed to be indexed to protect you against inflation, but you have to trust the government.  I will look into where to put money and report back.   

A better post-it:  DECOUPLE NOW.  It can be done, but it is like kicking a drug habit to get away from the pusher.  It won't be easy, but what it the alternative to dying a worker bee?

Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

By NEWT GINGRICH AND PETER FERRARA Posted 02/17/2010 06:52 PM ET

You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.

BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."

In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.

They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.

As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend." 

This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."

Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds, "What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."

This proposal follows hearings held last fall by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., of the Ways and Means Committee focusing on "redirecting (IRA and 401k) tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute," as reported by InvestmentNews.com.

The hearings examined a proposal from professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for Social Research in New York to give all workers "a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government" in return for requiring workers "to invest 5% of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration."

Argentina provided a precedent in 2008, taking over that country's private retirement accounts for forced investment in government bonds to cover spiraling deficits. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard editorialized at the time in Britain's Daily Telegraph that this may be "a foretaste of what may happen across the world as governments discover .. . that the bond markets are unwilling to plug the (deficit) gap. . .. My fear is that governments in the U.S., Britain and Europe will display similar reflexes."

This is just the latest chapter in what is developing into a war by the left on America's seniors. All that class-war rhetoric about "the rich" ends up targeting seniors, who tend to have accumulated the most in savings and investment on average because they have been around the longest.

President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid targeted seniors for hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts to finance expanded Medicaid for the poor and other new entitlements in the ObamaCare health care takeover legislation. If you liked your health insurance, you were supposed to be able to keep it, except for the 25% of seniors who had chosen Medicare Advantage private health plans for their Medicare coverage.

Even the Medicare actuaries estimated that most of those seniors would lose their Medicare Advantage coverage because of all the ObamaCare cuts for those plans. Obama has even begun rationing for seniors under Medicare by slashing payments to heart and cancer specialists serving seniors under that program.

All of this reflects a fundamental problem underlying socialist economic policies. If the government keeps punishing responsibility and rewarding failure, society ends up with a lot less responsibility and a lot more failure, destroying prosperity in the process.

As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend." And now they want to spend our retirement savings.

Congressional Republicans should introduce legislation to block the government from ever proceeding with anything like this. Call it the "Keep Your Hands Off My 401(k) Act of 2010."

• Gingrich is former speaker of the House.

• Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Recent input

Rather than work, I offer a few recent headlines, mostly from the commie NYT so you can't doubt the information.  

One should be able to see the big picture start to resolve. While each item is important as to its subject, connect the dots.  These dots are in front of us every day and like that storied frog in a pot of slowly warming water, we lose sensitivity, then die.

1.  Obama Plan: A 10-Year Bank Tax to Recoup Bailout

January 14, 2010, 6:25 AM

... “My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people {unlike the Obamas} who have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession,” Mr. Obama said in his remarks. [Class envy and hatred]

...The president called the tax a “financial crisis responsibility fee,” a name that suggests its political purpose as well as its fiscal implications... Many, includingGoldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, have repaid their federal funds with interest and the government has also made money in selling the banks’ warrants that it held as collateral.

[And now for the socialism report]...While the banks maintain that taxpayers made money from the bailout, losses are expected from money paid to rescue Chrysler and General Motors and the insurance giant American International Group, and from a program to help troubled homeowners avert foreclosures....  [Perhaps a financial crisis responsibility fee on the Democrats, starting with Cuomo, Frank, Todd, and Clinton]

2.

Banks, Experts Eye Possible Ways Around Obama Fee

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By REUTERS

Published: January 14, 2010

Filed at 6:04 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - No sooner does Washington propose a new tax than an army of experts tries to figure out ways to avoid it...

"This law could be a real boon for lawyers and consultants like me. There are tremendous opportunities for coming up with new mechanisms to avoid it," said Bert Ely, a bank consultant in Alexandria, Virginia.


3.

Democratic Leaders Reach Compromise on Taxing Health Plans [that's right, if you can afford a health plan, you are taxed, you scum, unless you are in a union.]

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

The White House and Congressional leaders have reached a tentative deal on a proposed excise tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance plans...

...The Senate bill currently would impose a 40 percent tax on the amount of policies for individuals above $8,500 and family plans above $23,000. [But wait! We can't let this happen to socialists.]

House Democrats and organized labor groups have been resisting the tax, which they say will hit many union-sponsored health  plans and force an increase in medical expenses for many middle class families....

[My old story of the discussion between two Yankee farmers:  One is explaining socialism and how it makes sense.  He says, "Say I have six Rolls Royce, well, we take three and and give them to you."

 "That sounds good." .... This goes on for a few examples. The second farmer likes this socialism.  

Then, the farmer says, "Say you have twenty cows.  You keep ten and I get ten."  Suddenly. the other farmer says, "Wait, wait, you know I have twenty cows."

Here ends Marxism, but if you let it in, it will takes decades before people will understand what happened, if they are not dumbed down and turned into those cows.]

4.  LEGAL

N.Y. Fed Told A.I.G. Not to Disclose Swap Details

January 7, 2010, 6:11 AM

Update | 12:13 p.m. Starting in November 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York under Timothy Geithner began urgingAmerican International Group, the huge insurer that the government had bailed out, to limit disclosure on payments made to banks at the height of the financial crisis, e-mail messages obtained by DealBook show...

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information to the S.E.C.,” ...

The rescue of A.I.G., then, was the rescue of its counterparties, the banks that held the mortgage-backed securities, and the terms of that rescue, according to the e-mail messages, are precisely what the Federal Reserve urges A.I.G. to hide.

In the end, A.I.G. would pay Société Générale $16.5 billion, Goldman $14 billion in total, Deutsche $8.5 billion and Merrill $6.2 billion.

5.  This is the idiot who forced the banks to make the bad loans that precipitated the housing collapse. Soon, to be NY's next governor - perfect.

Cuomo Demands Bonus Data From 8 Big Banks

January 11, 2010, 12:11 PM

Update | 12:52 p.m. Andrew M. Cuomo, New York’s attorney general...sending letters to eight of the nation’s biggest banks demanding information on how they structured those payouts.

The letters to the banks ... seek “extensive” information on how big the bonus pools are, how they were allocated and what clawback provisions and vesting periods are built in as checks and balances. The information is due Feb. 8. (Read one of the letters after the jump.)

...Even though all eight of these banks have paid back most or all of their government investments, Mr. Cuomo argued that the latest round of bonuses was still made possible because of taxpayer aid. Because of the struggling economy, he said, he found it necessary to make sure these firms were not doing anything improper in doling out these payouts. [Does that make sense to anyone? I want to see if Ben and Jerry managers got large bonuses.]

{Do you get the Marxist approach to class warfare?  Oddly, these big mean banks are owned by pension funds, grandma, and 401 (k) account. The goon logic is some CEO or salesman made a big bonus, so cripple the bank. Don't doubt your 401 (k) is a target. Much depends on Tuesday's election in MA; buy silver}

6.  ON NY

Thursday, January 14, 2010

NY property taxes rose $2.5B in 2009

The Business Review (Albany)

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New Yorkers paid $2.5 billion more in property taxes from 2008 to 2009 despite widespread drops in property values, according to The Business Council of New York State Inc.

The research wing of the Albany-based lobby found taxpayers paid $46 billion in property taxes in 2009, a 6 percent increase from the total bill in 2008.

Businesses paid 40 percent, or $18.5 billion, of the total $46 billion bill last year. That makes property taxes the largest non-federal tax on New York’s private-sector employers...

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Think about this, property values are down significantly, lets just quess: 25% in the past few years, yet real estate taxes are UP.

Can you see your home is your target?  Real estate ownership is not owning land, it has become borrowing it.  Don't think the government cares if yo took out a big mortgage, your home value is decreasing and you taxes went up. As the old sages said, sucker.

Gotta go