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Current Events

A Time to Heel

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Another great article from my friend Greg.

By: G. Maresca

Joe Biden’s “time for healing” and “stop treating our opponents as our enemies” speech was anything but Lincolnesque as the most divisive, volatile election since the Civil War has put many in doubt.

One teacher’s union has already demanded that Biden oppose any charter school expansion, while putting an end to school choice for Washington D.C.’s low-income families.  This is the same city that Biden won 93 percent of the vote.  With such gaudy numbers, Democrats must believe that everyone is as easily manipulated.

Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain is a former lobbyist for Silicon Valley titans Google, Facebook and Twitter, so forget about restricting their monopoly of social media censorship.

For at least two generations, Democrats have amplified how politics is not about compromise, but unadulterated power.  Any opposition is accused of being racist, homophobic, and xenophobic bigots, who must be subdued by any means in a nation where once Judeo-Christian principles governed our hearts and minds.

Turning a jaundiced eye toward Biden’s platitudes after tens of millions of Americans remained convinced the election was stolen isn’t difficult.  Biden’s plea is political virtue-signaling in the first-degree. Leftists in government, media, sports, big-tech, and entertainment continue to wage a relentless smear campaign against Trump and those who voted for him.

Democrats arrogantly called themselves the “resistance” saying Trump was an “illegitimate” president before he was even sworn in.  So, after four years of character assassination, anti-Trump hysteria and impeachment, race baiting, rioting, looting, and arson Democrats now want healing.

In Biden, speak healing is code for tax dollars that will subsidize abortions, mask and vaccination mandates, open borders, Green New Deal, reparations, and tax increases.  Such actions will only exacerbate conflict and constitutional disputes.

Healing should include exposing any election fraud, no?

Reconciling will occur when the unbridled slaughter of the unborn ends, and when the Little Sisters of the Poor and every other faith group’s conscience is protected.

With healing comes truth and transparency.

How did Biden retail his influence as vice president to the Chinese, Russians and Ukrainians?  What about the police and business owners who were killed, injured and looted?   Are the blacks who supported Trump still black?  Are the nearly 74,000,000 voters for Trump still “systemic” racists?  What about AOC’s call for persecution of them?   What about Biden’s silence on the Gen. Flynn cabal, the Mueller decapitation, and the Steele dossier, knowing they were all a pack of lies?  The left has not only opposed Trump’s policies; they have opposed his very existence.  And now after such debauchery, they insist on singing a chorus of kumbaya’s?

Provided Biden is serious, he will get plenty of flak from his own party. And don’t forget Kamala Harris beacons a heartbeat away.

The healing Biden desires only happens after amputations.

Healing and unity for Democrats is a one-way street and only applies when they are in control, which is why the runoff senate race in Georgia on Jan. 5, 2021 is pivotal.  Provided the GOP is victorious, Biden will have no choice but to govern from the center at least for the first two years of his administration.  That is provided the political mooring of Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, refuse to stand fast.

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation.” Biden like Obama will soon occupy the same White House as James Madison, the owner of that quote and father of our Constitution.  Obama and Biden never knew him, but Madison clearly knew them and those like them.

Unifying the country by a career politician like Biden is wishful at best.  If Washington D.C. is the swamp, then the 78-year-old Biden is its version of the swamp fox.

Our fundamental divisions concentrate on a demise of traditional, moral values.  They are essentially spiritual schisms which evolve from our relationship, or lack thereof, with God.  However, divided we used to be by political ideology, the nation always historically managed to circle the wagons around our shared Judeo-Christian roots, where its foundational virtues and conventions were passed down from generation to generation.

Authentic healing will only come through the grace of Divine Providence, not ersatz political bipartisanship.

Postscript. News is out about Mr. Mattis’ association with an organization not too friendly to the current US policy towards rogue nations. So what’s new with this fellow who says he is a Marine, but thousands of real Marines have disowned this skunk of a general (small caps for him). I find it astonishing that my post entitled “An Open Letter to Mr. Mattis” was posted on 9 June and to this very day it still gets views, EVERY DAY e.g. four today. That post has literally gone viral all over the world; keep it going. I would be willing to bet money he gets some kind of a posting from biden (small caps again).

Hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoying family and friends. Stay well and stay safe. Semper Fi; Jim

Originally posted 2020-11-26 10:52:29.

Current Events

Trump’s Tax Issue is BS!

It never ever ends with the NYT, they turn any Trump announcement into a headline, but never tell the whole story. Anyone who reads that despicable piece of garbage without doing some research is simply stupid, something none of us can ever fix.

Trump Didn’t Avoid Taxes, He Prepaid Them.

By Dick Morris

Monday, 28 September 2020 02:37 PM

Current | Bio | Archive

Contrary to the false impression in The New York Times story, Donald Trump did not avoid taxes.

He pre-paid them.

In 2016 and 2017, he requested and got an extension to file his returns.

As required, he made an estimated tax payment of $1 million in 2016 and $4.2 million in 2017. Then, it turned out that he did not owe that much in taxes, but, rather than demand the money back, he let the IRS keep it and apply it to any future tax he owed.

So — when he only paid $750 in taxes for the first two years of his presidency it was because he had already overpaid during the two previous years and just reduced his payment by that amount.

Over the longer term, Trump overpaid his taxes by $72 million.

Because some of that overpayment was more than two years earlier, he was not allowed to offset it against current taxes. But Obama changed the law to allow taxpayers to go further back and he offset his tax liability in future years by citing his overpayment.

So Donald Trump did not avoid paying taxes, he prepaid them.

So what’s wrong with that?

Many taxpayers overpay or have more withheld from their paychecks than they end up owing in taxes. They look forward to a deserved refund each year.

Some even use the process as a way of saving money.

All that Trump did differently, was to leave the money at the IRS and take the refund over several years. A government strapped for cash should reward such conduct, not vilify it.

And, since no good deed goes unpunished in politics, the president also being skewered for taking a charitable tax deduction of $119 million for agreeing not to build homes on a 200 acre plot in Westchester, New York and a similar one in Los Angeles.

In each case, Trump bought the property planning to build a golf course and homes on them. Both times, the local zoning board refused to allow the development.

So Trump donated the right to develop develop this land to charity and took a deduction of $119 million, called a charitable easement.

So now the beautiful land in each location will be preserved forever wild as a place of refuge for people, birds, and animals.

Beyond these points, several facts emerge:

  1. Trump never used any illegal means to reduce his tax liability. He always followed the law.
  1. He never used his power as president to get the IRS to pull its punches even though he appoints the director who serves at his pleasure.
  1. He took advantage of every way to cut his tax burden. Do you know any taxpayer who doesn’t?

Can’t wait for tonight. Someone PLEASE check Sleepy Joe’s ears for a fob.

Originally posted 2020-09-29 13:08:08.

Recent Posts

Let’s hear it for the 99%!

I just can’t get over how the MSM ignores facts, but what slays me is how they continue to pound the on the economy stating how bad it is and especially for anyone who is one of the 1% gang. Just today, the FED lowered interest rates 1/4 point because the the economy is doing so well, and while their are little signs of inflation they wanted to head it off should it start. Geez.

From the WSJ Editorial board.

Political discourse nowadays is enough to depress anyone, and the media don’t help by ignoring good economic news. But buck up, Americans: Worker wages are growing much faster than previously reported.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Tuesday published its annual revisions to personal income data, and the surprise was the huge jump in disposable income and employee compensation.

The revisions show that employee compensation rose 4.5% in 2017 and 5% in 2018—some $4.4 billion and $87.1 billion more than previously reported. The trend has continued into 2019, with compensation increasing $378 billion or 3.4% in the first six months alone. Wages and salaries were revised upward to 5.3% from 3.6% in May year over year. And in June wages and salaries grew at an annual rate of 5.5%, which is a rocking 4.1% after adjusting for inflation.

This is far more than the 3.1% year over year increase in average hourly earnings that the Labor Department’s jobs report showed for June. One reason for the disparity may be that employers are hiring millions of younger, lower-income workers, which may be depressing average hourly earnings as older, more highly paid workers retire.

The BEA also revised overall personal income up by 1.7% for 2017 and 2018 and transfer receipts down 0.7%. In sum, Americans are earning more and relying less on government. Personal savings estimates were also increased by $217 billion for the last two years and are now $1.3 trillion, which means Americans are socking away more of their earnings.

The personal savings rate was revised upward to 8.1% from 6.1% in May, which is much higher than the roughly 5% before the last two recessions. This should make the current economic expansion more durable since consumption isn’t being pumped up largely by increased household debt. Instead consumer spending has increased as wage growth has accelerated amid a tight labor market.

Recall how liberals blamed “secular stagnation” as the reason worker incomes weren’t growing faster during the latter years of Barack Obama’s Presidency. Yet employee compensation has increased by $150 billion more in the first six months of 2019 than all of 2016. Compensation increased 42% more during the first two years of the Trump Presidency than in 2015 and 2016. This refutes the claim by liberals that the economy has merely continued on the same trajectory since 2017 as it was before.

The economy barely skirted recession in the final Obama years, and economic policy changed in 2017. Deregulation has unleashed repressed animal spirits, especially in energy. Tax reform has also spurred business investment in new facilities and equipment, which over time should translate into higher worker productivity and wages.

Those reforms are continuing to pay economic dividends despite the damage from Mr. Trump’s trade policies. While Democrats and even some conservatives complain that workers haven’t benefited from tax reform, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Corporate after-tax profits increased by about $220 billion between 2016 and 2018 while employee compensation swelled nearly $1 trillion. Corporate profits declined 2.9% in the first quarter of 2019 even as wages grew at an annual rate of 10.1%. This sure sounds like an economy that is benefiting the 99%.

Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the July 31, 2019, print edition

Originally posted 2019-07-31 17:06:46.

Current Events

Beware of Halloween Spooks

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Hello followers. I hope this missive finds you and yours in the best of health and staying safe. My bride and I returned from our getaway to St. Lucia very early this morning. Truly a relaxing place for the late twenty to late thirty crowd. For the early eighty crowd, not so relaxing; glad I purposely did not bring my Hearing Aids. Not quite my genre of music; in fact, it was unbearable. However, the place is so large and dissected in such a way we found a quiet pool away from all that. Anyway, we both had a great time, lots of fun in the sun.

I arrived home to find an excellent treatise by Greg on the current state of the economy in this once vibrant and glowing country of sane people. And as usual, I totally concur with all he states. It is coming folks. For those living off their 401K’s beware!! I and most who think like me have been selling for the past several weeks, and I shall continue during the ups and downs of Wall Street. I shall also do some selective buying, but inflationary companies, which are many, will not be on my sought-after lists.

The highlights in red within Greg’s treatise are mine.

October Instincts

By: G. Maresca

The Executive Director of JPMorgan Chase admitted that the stock market’s “biggest nightmare periods have tended to be October. You go back to obviously the crash in 1929, but the 1987 crash, and in 1989… was in October. You tend to have these October moments.”

Financially most are feeling pretty good as brokerage accounts never looked healthier and home prices are over-the-top. Over the past year, the S&P 500 has closed at new, all-time highs over 50 times and in so doing has created the illusion that the market only rises.

This results in taking more chances when investing.

The K-shaped economy and booming stock market underscore that Main Street and Wall Street are at a major disconnect. Many dismiss the growing rate of inflation, the unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve’s nonstop money-printing and increased debt believing that the dollar today is worth the same as it was last year.

It’s not.

The duality of low interest rates and those stimulus payouts have devalued the dollar. Thanks to inflation and time, savings in fixed investments like CDs, bank accounts and money markets lose purchasing power. With yields registering next to nothing, where are investors expected to put their money?

As a result, savers seek more risk in order to obtain better returns leading to a stock market that is cooking and overvalued. Increasing stock prices coupled with a mushrooming federal debt is a brick road paved over with inflation.  As the Fed continues easy-money policies, the market will continue higher as the infusion of cheap dollars rules the day.

Most bankers, brokers, and politicians understand that these bouts with inflation are what economists call: “The Money Illusion.” It is when one’s wealth is measured in how many dollars they possess, rather than its purchasing power.

Among investors, the Money Illusion breeds risk taking and heightened speculation. It’s like watching a skilled magician work his stagecraft. It looks and appears amazing and impossible, but it is not at all what it seems.

Low interest rates did, in fact, rescue the market. The Fed slashed short-term interest rates to near zero at the onset of the COVID-19 debacle and bought large purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds making dollars discounted. In so doing, The Fed propped up not only the bond markets, but stocks, too.

Many are in denial about what is truly happening throughout our financial system. To paraphrase writer Upton Sinclair, it’s difficult to get someone to look when their getting paid depends on not looking.

Adding to the illusion is that 40% of all U.S. currency in circulation has been printed since March 2020. Few comprehend the effects of so many trillions in our financial system. The Case-Shiller Index which measures home prices has risen 18.6% for the year, up from a record 16.8% the month before. The index is the proverbial rat in the financial mine that brings with it a healthy dose of inflation.

Financial storm clouds are forming as the economy experiences labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, rising prices, and increasing inflation. With too many dollars chasing too few assets, the good times won’t last forever.

One out of every four companies are on life support because of low interest rates. With rates near zero, and with inflation rising, The Fed cannot afford to keep them low forever.

Bankruptcies are on the horizon.

The federal debt continues to grow as trillions crowd the government’s balance sheet with the debt literally growing by the second. Inflation does to a degree keep the debt somewhat manageable. However, as inflation rises, Social Security, and other assorted fixed incomes like pensions will see their buying power shrink even further.

Eventually, a significant tax increase will hit all Americans hard and below the belt – regardless of income.

Rising stock prices are great, but when easy money begins to create social, political, and economic turmoil, something is seriously amiss. A White House which believes that global warming, systemic racism and COVID are our greatest threats, does not possess the foresight and wisdom to comprehend what is economically occurring.

The laws of economics cannot be repealed, no matter what one’s wishful thinking may be.

As October looms, consider this a heads-up.

Postscript: Beware of the ghouls of October, they are coming, meanwhile many Americans keep chasing those soon to be negligent goods and, to paraphrase Mack the Knife , “Spending like a Sailor.”

Originally posted 2021-09-20 14:39:12.

Current Events

Christmas in July

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A couple making $149,999 a year with one child between six and seventeen gets $250/month?  And the rationale is it will reduce child poverty — really? Folks doing simple arithmetic of 39 million households getting the lowest of $250/month come to $9,750,000,000. Count the zeros, that’s 9.75 billion dollars a month, paid for by. . . . . .? And it lasts through till the end of the year.

Question,  is a child of a couple who make just short of $150,000  living in poverty?  Really? Oh well, surely the government would know; I mean their our leaders, right?

By: G. Maresca

Congressional Democrats approved an expanded version of the Child Tax Credit that was part of the American Rescue Plan and did so without bipartisan support.

On July 15th, the IRS began depositing $300 a month for every child under six and $250 for each child up to 17. This latest round of monthly cash infusion from Washington is for parents making under $75,000 per year, and for those parents filing jointly who earn less than $150,000 per year. Nearly, 39 million households, covering 88% of American children will receive the monthly outlays, according to USA Today.

Democrats maintain the payments will reduce child poverty, as if the absence of money were the problem. Democrats have thrown trillions at poverty starting with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” which is nothing short of Jim Crow 2.0.  and on its fourth generation of undermining the family. Cash helps but rarely addresses the underlying issues that money cannot solve.

This roguish cycle of government dependence is renewed by each subsequent generation of welfare recipients who teach their children, probably from a multitude of fathers, that they are entitled to the fruits of somebody else’s labor. Every welfare program must be tied to positive behaviors with a time limit on benefits. It should not be a lifetime annuity.

Replacing the father with government has done tremendous harm to women and children. Nearly 90% of incarcerated males grew up in fatherless homes. Contrary to the Left’s ridicule of American patriarchy, the problem is not that we have too much of it but not enough.

This so-called stimulus spending is an investment in buying future votes all in the name of compassion. Taking from those who work in order to provide for those who don’t to buy their votes is ideological theft. Democrats have made vote buying an art, while making voting more haphazard by not requiring ID – all to their benefit.

Such shenanigans are an integral part of keeping Democrats permanently in power. Provided Democrats can maintain their slight edge in the House of Representatives and retain Vice President Harris’s tiebreaker vote in the Senate in 2022, these apparatchiks will not only remain in power but solidify it.

If you believe monthly free cash will end poverty, your perception of human nature is wanting. A prime symptom of leftist derangement syndrome is believing poverty is solely based upon the lack of cash. Poverty is rooted in a plethora of issues that largesse ignores but certainly reinforces. Democrats have always been more fixated on symptoms than causes.

This cash infusion will not move the poverty level one percent because tax credits are not factored into the poverty rate. The same holds true for food stamps, Medicaid, Section 8, and earned income tax credits that total into the hundreds of billions annually – none of it counts.

The Leftist tradition of not holding anyone accountable for their contribution to their circumstance’s reigns. When bad behavior involves guns, the gun is at fault, not the humans who use them. When those who created their circumstances fail, it is society’s fault. This results in a one size fits all bureaucratic government program that only contributes to the nation’s decline.

Ian Smith, the New Jersey gym owner who refused to close his gym during the pandemic, summed it up this way: “Everything the government is doing right now is designed to make you fat, weak, stupid, depressed, lazy, and reliant on crumbs they wipe off their plates. Health replaced by pharmaceuticals. Education replaced by programming. Hard work replaced by handouts. These people hate you.”

Once acquainted with systematic direct deposits from everyone’s favorite Washington Uncle, less and less people will oppose them. One of the malevolent attributes of socialism is how it takes advantage of people by claiming to help them.

Democrats have always needed a dependent class to maintain their relevancy and hold on power. These longstanding attributes are now devolving into a dependent country.

The Child Tax Credit deposits are to expire at the end of the year, but Biden is hoping to extend them until 2025, the next presidential election. How is that for political expediency?

Sporting aviator sunglasses, Biden is Santa Claus, and every day is Christmas in America.

What’s not to like?

 

Originally posted 2021-07-24 11:34:37.