President Barack Obama called for $1.4 trillion in fresh revenue from Americans at the top of the income scale, proposing higher taxes on wages and investments and limiting breaks for retirement savings and health insurance.
The tax proposals in the administration’s fiscal 2013 budget plan, released yesterday, were immediately rejected by business groups and congressional Republicans, who said the ideas are part of Obama’s re-election strategy and gave them little chance of advancing into law in 2012.
“Whether this occurs in Congress this year or this is the tax platform for this year’s election, it’s disconcerting for businesses,” said Caroline Harris, chief tax counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business group.
In what he billed a bid for tax fairness and deficit reduction, Obama reversed his previous policy of taxing dividends more lightly than wage income. The budget plan would raise $206.4 billion over 10 years by treating dividends as ordinary income for married couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000.
“We simply can’t afford to devote $206 billion for lower tax rates for the highest-income Americans,” Gene Sperling, White House director of the National Economic Council, told reporters. “Our system for taxing investment income for the most well-off Americans is clearly broken.”
Higher Rates
Obama is proposing a top individual income tax rate of 39.6 percent in 2013, up from 35 percent. His budget would tax long- term capital gainsat a top rate of 20 percent, up from 15 percent. The top dividend tax rate is now 15 percent.
An additional 3.8 percent tax on the unearned income of couples earning $250,000 and individuals making at least $200,000 will take effect next year as part of the 2010 health- care law. As a result, under Obama’s plan some taxpayers would pay 43.4 percent in federal taxes on their dividends next year. That’s almost triple what they now pay and comes on top of corporate taxes.
A coalition of companies, including AT&T Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), has been lobbying to maintain the current rates on capital gains and dividends. Democratic leaders in Congress may take their cues from Obama and propose a higher tax rate on dividends than on capital gains, said Jim McCrery, a lobbyist for the coalition.
“There was some comfort in knowing that the president was supporting a top rate for both of 20 percent, and now that’s been taken away,” said McCrery, a former Republican member of Congress from Louisiana who sat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Policy Difference
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/obama-s-budget-plan-proposes-doubling-dividend-tax-in-focus-on-the-wealthy.html
The stock market rallied in the last half-hour Tuesday, seizing on reports that suggested the Greek debt talks might be saved. Stocks finished flat after languishing in the red for most of the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 4.24 points, or 0.03 percent, to close at 12,878.28, about 12 points shy of its best finish this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 1.27 points, or 0.09 percent, to close at 1,350.50. The Nasdaq composite index gained 0.44 point, 0.02 percent, to 2,931.83.
Stocks in the United States were weighed down as European finance chiefs canceled a meeting planned for Wednesday to discuss a second international bailout for the country.
The meeting was called off after Athens failed to deliver on several demands made by its partners in the euro currency union. Greece needs a bailout of 130 billion euros by March 20 to avoid a default that could upset the world financial system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html
Nothing earth shattering in this 60 minutes expose on India's tradition on gold, but interesting. QB
Hopes for Greek Debt Talks Spur Late Rally
The stock market rallied in the last half-hour Tuesday, seizing on reports that suggested the Greek debt talks might be saved. Stocks finished flat after languishing in the red for most of the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 4.24 points, or 0.03 percent, to close at 12,878.28, about 12 points shy of its best finish this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 1.27 points, or 0.09 percent, to close at 1,350.50. The Nasdaq composite index gained 0.44 point, 0.02 percent, to 2,931.83.
Stocks in the United States were weighed down as European finance chiefs canceled a meeting planned for Wednesday to discuss a second international bailout for the country.
The meeting was called off after Athens failed to deliver on several demands made by its partners in the euro currency union. Greece needs a bailout of 130 billion euros by March 20 to avoid a default that could upset the world financial system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html
Nothing earth shattering in this 60 minutes expose on India's tradition on gold, but interesting. QB
21 comments:
A copy of his free newsletter.
Tischendorf Letter Issue 132 - February 14, 2012
Greetings!
Today I sold both DNN - Denison Mines and UEX.TO - UEX Corp. for a small loss.
Although these were small initial positions I changed my mind and decided to sell nonetheless. Unexpected good news hit the wires. The first new US nuclear power plant in 30 years got approved. With this kind of positive catalyst I would have expected an explosive move to the upside. DNN tried and put in a small spike but then failed miserably. When stocks do not act well when they 'should', this is a potentially huge red flag. I will now focus on entering again if the bullish flags get resolved to the upside.
Administrative note:
As I've recently mentioned on my website my focus right now is on non-blogging activities. Except for the occasional post, I will stop updating my website for a few months and trade without publicly disclosing my positions.
A few unasked pieces of advice:
- No matter what your opinions are - always use a stop loss.
- Don't listen to people who are always right.
- Don't believe the hype.
- Stay calm and focused.
I'll be back soon. Until then, best of luck with your trading decisions!
A great way to support my work is to tell your friends and family. Thank you!
Positions:
100% Cash
Best regards,
Olivier Tischendorf
Thank you for the linki to the "60 Minutes" gold story, QB. I can't remember when the last time was that I watched anything on CBS, even though we get the American stations from Seattle on our basic cable here. The dinosaur networks seem irrelevant these days. Does anyone who follows current events closely pay attention to them? On the news junkie and financial blogs I follow, I never see anything more than a mocking mention of the network news shows, and rarely even that, because, like, who cares?
When I started watching, I thought the segment might be a subtle advertisement for gold. But as it went on, the reporter seemed to be intimating "Oh those quaint Indians, with their naive faith in the barbarous relic." At one point he said "But the price of gold CAN'T keep going up forever!" I wonder if he understands that it's not the price of gold that's going up so much as it is the value of fiat currency that keeps going DOWN. That concept might be so far outside his conventional worldview that he could not wrap his mind around it, though.
All in all, I was more interested in the fleeting glimpses of average Indians' lives than the glamourous wedding details of people who can throw a party for 7,000 guests. There's too much focus on the 1% on TV. That's not reality for the majority. You think it's true what the report said, that the rich and middle-class Indians now outnumber the poor? If so, I'm amazed. Of course, what's middle-class to India would not equate to middle class in the West.
Lastly, among the many thoughts that raised in my mind, is what it said about the status of women. It seems like they have to buy their way into a man's family. "Give us gold, bitch, or we won't do you the favour of letting our wonderful son marry you so you can whelp his spawn, cook his meals and clean his toilet until we get tured of you and set your sari on fire with stove kerosene." One of the reasons Mrs. Bukko will never go to India, aside from her deathly gastric allergy to spices in curry, is how women are treated worse than the sacred cattle there.
As far as Hopey's proposed tax increases, I'd be all for 'em. Make the rich pay a bit more. Reduce their influence in society somewhat. Move a little closer to balancing the budget and slowing the degradation of the clownbuck
Except for one thing. The man's a fcuking faker. He makes grand-sounding proposals all the time to appeal to the liberal base who voted for him in 2008. The he doesn;t do jack to get them passed through Congress. That allows him to say "I tried to do what you libs wanted, but the forces of conservatism were too strong! Vote for me anyway, pretty please?"
Screw that. I'm voting Green. Let Rombot win the election and get the destruction of the USA on with quickly, or let President Zero stay in office and allow the decline to continue slowly. End result will be the same. The only question is the timing.
"UKIP: Bankers Need To Be SENT TO PRISON"
http://www.youtube.com/v/m5NuHOXWlgM&rel=0&hl=en_US
Short and totally correct - the unvarnished truth.
If you are in the UK, vote UKIP, as they are among the very few who get it.
Words you will never hear on the MSM.
Obama is a captured pro-Bankster cretin, just another bought and paid for political whore whose only goal is to enrich Banksters at the expense of every one else in society.
And if you thought he is bad, just look at the kleptocratic oligarchists who call themselves the Republican Party, they can make even the likes of Obama look good, which should be impossible.
America is going to fail totally under what passes for their leadership, and these corrupt and completely incompetent pandering politicians will do nothing about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Ayb8P1LbU&feature=player_embedded
More from the UKIP, the awesome Nigel Farage speaks more plain truth, of the kind "elite" scum/leaders refuse to hear.
Another short and totally to the point video, well worth watching.
More words you will never hear on the MSM.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/a-dimon-repeatedly-in-the-rough-who-demands-winter-rules-aka-preferred-lies/
The US Government in action - everything they do is only to serve their Bankster masters and no one else.
"A New York Times investigation by Edward Wyatt documented the depth of the rot at the SEC in a February 3, 2012 article entitled “S.E.C. is Avoiding Tough Sanctions for Large Banks.”
“JPMorganChase, for example, has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, including one with a $228 million settlement last summer, but it has obtained at least 22 waivers, in part by arguing that it has “a strong record of compliance with securities laws.””
SEC investigations have found that JPMorganChase is a serial violator of the securities laws. The bank gets caught, promises to clean up its act, gets fined, signs a typically useless consent decree that has no admissions, creates no precedent, and undercuts deterrence, and gets waived out of the few detriments there are to banks with records of serial SEC staff findings of violations.
JPMorganChase exemplifies this pattern of the SEC winking at serial fraud by the systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs). The SEC routinely allows the SDIs to operate under Winter Rules and the SDIs routinely and repeatedly employ preferred lies."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/volcker-rule-mfglobal-bankcounterparty/
"Today’s post Glass Steagall repeal Bankers engage in leveraged speculation that potentially could blow the bank up. They did it to themselves with sub-prime mortgages; have no doubt that someone is working on the next ‘financial innovation’ whose losses will be even bigger and better than RMBS and CDOs.
When the next bank blows up — note I said when and not if — their depositors will become counter-parties. Those depositors are you, just like MF Global’s. Only, you as counter-part are not first in line with a claim on the monies — the folks on the other side of the trade get first dibs.
So this bank blows up, the trades settle, the counter party banks/brokers get paid, and whatever is left (if anything) goes to depositors. The FDIC will make good up to $250,000. FDIC’s budgets comes froma small fee on banks. If the losses are great enough, it will exceed their budget and so the taxpayer than fills int he difference.
The risks and rewards are to use a big word “asymmetric.” Hit a home run as a trader or banker, collect a huge bonus. Lose it all and then some, and the taxpayer is on the hook. Anyone who fails to see the simple math of this either spends their days shilling for banks or are acting as CEO mouthpieces.
Privatized gains, socialized losses."
http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/2012/02/more-on-leaked-greek-debt-deal-documents/#ixzz1mTE7atEd
"More on leaked Greek debt deal documents"
"The documents make clear the schedule is slipping dangerously; the meeting of eurozone finance ministers tonight that has been cancelled was supposed to approve the launch of the restructuring so the process can begin Friday. The whole thing needs to be done before a €14.5bn Greek bond comes due for repayment March 20. Time is running out.
But perhaps more interestingly is the fact that eurozone finance ministries asked for financial advice from New York financial advisors Lazard and legal advice from the New York firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton about what the consequences would be if they launched the debt restructuring – but were forced to scrap it after it had started..."
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/02/14/occupys-amazing-volcker-rule-letter/
"One of the saddest aspects of the financialization of the US economy is the way in which America’s best and brightest found themselves working on Wall Street, rather than in jobs which improved the state of the world. Proof of this comes from the absolutely astonishing 325-page comment letter on the Volcker Rule which has been put together by Occupy the SEC; it’s pretty clear, from reading the letter, that the people who wrote it are whip-smart and extremely talented...."
The truth, from OWS, which is why it must be ignored at all costs by the criminal financial terrorist vermin who call themselves "Wall St".
Mish finds the same videos I posted above compelling:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/farage-globalist-troika-driving-greece.html
I got the links from Market Ticker and ZH, but try Mish if you can't see the videos.
Both are short, to the point, and absolutely correct.
http://www.businessinsider.com/doubleline-jeff-gundlach-us-decline-fall-roman-empire-2012-2?op=1
"Business Insider has a slideshow from last night's webcast from Doubleline's Jeffrey Gundlach, and let's just say he is somewhat bearish very long term.
Like the U.S., he noted that Rome had an insufficient tax system and a huge military budget. Like Rome, the U.S. faces "persistence of a destitute underclass," as reflected by the excruciatingly slow job recovery. Gundlach's talk also included commentary on the year-to-date performance of markets as well as his outlook for the rest of the year."
If only we had a Farage in the White House. The line the Financial Terrorist against the wall and give them a cigarette and a blindfold. Give all the depositors at MF Global who lost money have a gun.
William K. Black story post on The Big Picture about Winter Rules was shows on and why the SEC allows Serial Banksters to stay in business while the FBI arrests Serial Killers who then go to jail. Banks like JPM and GS are far more dangerous to us all.
"JPMorganChase exemplifies this pattern of the SEC winking at serial fraud by the systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs)."
Mr. Obama, while you are doling out meaningless 40.00 tax rebates to the middle class you are still not eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the very rich. I want to know why? You don't represent and middle class or any class other than the filthy rich and the banksters who rob us blind on a daily basis with impunity.
I am going to take a look at that slide show now. Great stuff GAW. Bukko, Mammoth and Edgar (If you are reading) this is right in our wheelhouse. What Farage said in one video raised the hair on the German representatives neck and he demanded an apology for Farage. None was forthcoming as he has nothing to apologize for.
I made a great deal on two US mint Gold Eagles today. One in its original box in a capsule with the certificate of authenticity. I am off to the bank soon.
Here's The Presentation Where Jeff Gundlach Dares To Compare The US To The Roman Empire. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-gundlach-speaks-markets-economy-2012-2
He also says to sell all BAC stock immediately so if he is write that criminal organization will soon be out of business. It used to be a good bank until the criminals in Charlotte NC who owned Nations Bank bought them out.
Here is another presentation that I started on gold.
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-whole-bunch-of-charts-that-will-make-you-freak-out-about-the-debt-2012-2#-59
Obama is the dancing monkey to Organgrinders known Central bankers!
Poor thing. I wonder if he has any inkling how history will judge him?
Australian banks are bringing in huge profits, huge!
Westpac posts $1.5b profit
8:02am
Westpac is the latest bank to report big earnings, recording a huge first-quarter cash profit. 21 CBA boss warns of more rises
Interest rates are on the rise again...not really the sign of an economy about to crash...
Another bank profit out, Commonwealth bank of Australia:
Update Commonwealth Bank has posted a profit of $3.624 billion for the December half as bad debt charges fell, and declared it has no plans to join rival banks in slashing staff numbers.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/earnings-season/cba-posts-record-362-billion-profit-20120215-1t4rz.html#ixzz1mUSsjcoe
Post a Comment