If a nation prints more money, like cutting a 16 inch pizza into 16 slices instead of 8, is each slice worth less?

Nations are not ruined by one act of violence

but quite often, gradually, and almost imperceptibly

by the depreciation of their currency through excessive quantity

Nicolas Copernicus

Discovered Earth was not the center of the Universe

If Nathaniel Rothschild accumulated gold
essential for supporting an army upon Napoleon’s return
in anticipation of an extensive military conflict
and rapidly increasing government borrowing
and profitably exchanged relatively high priced gold
for lower cost debt
in anticipation of sovereign debt stability
upon Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815
could current circumstances reflect something like the same thing
only opposite?

Now in modern markets

it is striking that exactly the reverse…applies

Governments all over the world

are about to flood the bond markets with paper

to finance their bank bailouts and economic stimulus plans

and the final bill could amount to more than $6 trillion

…governments are about to need to raise the funds

to fight another Napoleon

This massive new supply of bonds

[could]depress the price of existing bonds

…governments all over the world

have embarked on massive money creation

Peter Cooper

Seeking Alpha

(Hat tip for the Rothchild metaphor)

If Germany’s central bank suspended the right
to redeem gold backed Reichsmarks during World War I
and 170 Reichsmarks bought an ounce of gold in January 1919
why did an ounce of gold cost 87,000,000,000,000 Reichsmarks
in November 1923?

What if the pizza shrinks 

while the number of slices rise?

A BB&T, wealthy investor and Carolina Bank bailout for Skip Alston's Civil Rights Museum and the Simpkins PAC

"The International Civil Rights Center & Museum still wants $1.5 million from the city, but it has a new plan for using it.

Museum leaders say city money — $750,000 this year and lesser amounts in the following two years — will help stabilize the struggling 3-year-old facility."

Does more money up front mean the museum is running low on cash and is in dire financial straits, partly caused by Skip Alston's participation?

"City Council members got the details of the museum’s revised request at a series of meetings Thursday."

Back room deals?

John Newsome of the News & Record attended the meeting, along with Skip Alston, Earl Jones etc...

"Council members might vote on the money at their next meeting, which is Aug. 5.

With the city’s help, the museum “will be able to generate enough funding to carry us through this year and the next two,” said Melvin “Skip” Alston, the chairman of the museum’s board of directors and a former Guilford County commissioner. “We just need a little bit of breathing room this year.”

Did Skip pull the Simpkins PAC endorsement extortion in the "series of meetings?

"The museum ...got about 57,000 paying visitors last year, far fewer than the 200,000 its leaders projected. Annual revenues have sagged by more than half..."

Were Skip Alston's attendance projections relatively bogus?

The museum didn't live up to it's goals.

The museum is failing under its current leadership.

"The museum is running a monthly deficit of about $150,000 despite cutting staff to five full-time positions. Alston said loan interest payments and facility depreciation accounts for all but roughly $30,000 per month of that."

BB&T syndicated the museum tax credits for investors.

The tax credits were most likely purchased by wealthy investors and packaged tax credit funds.

"In May, the museum asked the city for $500,000 a year over the next three years to help students come to Greensboro and see the new program. Council members wanted more details about the proposed grant and the museum’s finances, and the request never came to a vote.

Museum leaders laid out their revised request Thursday. Among the details:

The museum wants $750,000 this year, $500,000 in 2014 and $250,000 in 2015.

$100,000 would go toward paying off a loan that comes due next month." [Carolina Bank]

If the investors and BB&T are bailed out by Greensboro's taxpayers, the failed leadership will remain in place.

"...Since 1995, the city has given the museum $975,000 for planning and building repairs."

John Newsome
.
.
If BB&T and wealthy investors are not bailed out and free market capitalism reigns via Greensboro's City Council not continuing to hand out taxpayer money to those who control votes in East Greensboro via Simkins PAC endorsements controlled by Skip and friends, the museum goes under, declares bankruptcy, eliminates the debt and comes out clean without Skip and Simkins involvement/control, which means the museum could most likely survive as viable enterprise.

The Museum has not submitted audited financial statements.

I propose letting the museum go under, let BB&T and the investors take the hit, remove Skip from the equation, and leave behind an ethically clean Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, preferably connected to the City of Greensboro Historical Museum, which should also in part include the Carolina Theater, as the blacks only section still exists above the balcony.

Nancy Vaughan suggested a similar package deal including the Greensboro Science Center.

George Hartzman
https://www.facebook.com/Hartzman
.
.
The International Civil Rights Museum's 2011 IRS tax form 990 and what looks like a bailout for BB&T and wealthy investors, with what looks like some pretty important unanswered questions

If Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make about 5% on dividends and 5% oncapital gains on about $100 billion, did they stop by the White Houseto thank Obama for giving them what could be an extra $1,477,351,600over 2 years, by charging America’s children about $1,600 a piece?

President Obama met with Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett
in the Oval Office this morning.

...During the visit, they also discussed ideas for growing the economy
and making America more competitive including investment in education
to better prepare the next generation
and investing in innovative areas with opportunity for growth.

USA Today

If Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are worth about $100 billion,
and make about $10 billion per year between long term capitol gaines and dividend interest
could they save about $1,477,351,600 over two years if Obama’s Tax Deal passes?

…….……………………….…………..…Tax Cuts Extended…………….Tax Cuts Expired

Dividends and LT Capital Gains………..$10,000,000,000…………………$10,000,000,000?

Tax Liability……………………………….…..$749,741,250 ……….$1,488,417,050?

Average Tax Rate………………………………..14.99%…………………..……. 29.77%?

$749,741,250 – $1,488,417,050 = about $738,675,800 x 2 years = about $1,477,351,600?

Tax Plan: Tax Cuts Extended vs. Tax Cuts Expired    
Tax Year:  2011
AMT Patch:  AMT Patch in effect

Tax Calculator

 

If about 1,699,000 US households make more than $250,000,
and their portion of the tax cuts cost $120 billion
are America’s elected leaders
about to charge everyone’s kids $1,600 each
to give Bill Gates and Warren Buffett about $1,477 billion?

$120,000,000,000 / 75,000,000 Kids = $1,600 per American Child?

Questions for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that will probably be not asked during his congressional testimony

Could many who believe the government should pledge to tax ever larger portions of their children’s future income to prevent the failure of insolvent businesses, be indirectly advocating a political system other than capitalistic democracy?

Capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all

but a kind of socialism for the rich

 

James Grant

 

 

Does intervention delay real recovery?

 

If capitalism is dependent on creative destruction, what is it without destruction?

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter
popularized and used the term to describe the process of transformation that accompanies radical innovation

 

…innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies

that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power

 

Creative Destruction

Wikipedia

 

If most economists still believe in the concepts that discounted the possibilities of the financial crisis, should economic policy rely on the same prognosticators who helped enable the worst financial distress since the Great Depression for economic tactics and forecasting?

 

The process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within,  incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one ...

 

[The process] must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction, it cannot be understood on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull

 

Joseph Schumpeter

The Process of Creative Destruction, 1942

 

If the natural cycle of laissez faire capitalism revolves between risk and aversion, what should happen if government intervention perverts the process

to forestall short term economic pain?

 

What should the electorate expect

from leadership dependent on the status quo?

 

Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act

 

George Orwell

"Senate Tax-Cut Plan Would Add $857 Billion to U.S. Debt," or will the Tax Deal really cost at least $1,472.92 trillion?

"...The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which estimates the revenue effects of tax legislation, said the provisions would cost the government $801.3 billion in forgone revenue over 10 years. Extending unemployment benefits for 13 months, another feature of the package, would cost $56 billion, the Obama administration has said."

$857 Billion @ 4% x 30 years = $1,472.92 trillion

$857 Billion @ 5% x 40 years = $1,983.56 trillion

$857 Billion @ 6% x 50 years = $2,706.77 trillion

$857 Billion @ 7% x 75 years = $4,523.35 trillion

The proposal would extend Bush-era tax cuts for all levels of income. A two-year extension of those rates would cost $407.6 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

...The tax agreement lacks revenue-raising offsets."

Ryan J. Donmoyer

 

Mortgage Loan Calculator

How could US Congressman Howard Coble explain why he may vote to charge each and every US child about $1,600 each to give US Senator John Kerry what could be about $500,036 in Tax Cuts over two years?

If about 1,699,000 US households make more than $250,000, and their portion of the tax cuts is about $120 billion...?

If US congressman Darrell Issa is worth about $303 million and makes about 5% of his net worth per year, could he charge every US child $12,000 to vote himself about $1,387,836 in Tax Cuts over two years?

Could US Senator John Kerry charge every US child $12,000 to vote himself about $500,036 in Tax Cuts over two years?

If Britney Spears makes about $64 million per year, could she bring in another $5,876,704 from President Obama's Tax Deal over the next two years?

If Michael Bloomberg makes 5% per year on $20 billion, and pays half his taxes on long term capitol gaines and half on dividend interest, could he bring in an extra $295 million over two years with Obama's Tax Deal?

If Rush Limbaugh makes about $78 million per year, could Obama's Tax Deal give him about $15,324,704 more over the next two years?

If there are about 75 million kids in the United States of America, will congress and the president charge them $12,000 a piece to bail out the financial mismanagement of their parents?

Can any American legislator who votes for a $900 billion deficit increase run as a "fiscal conservative" in 2012?

How could some American legislators opposed to raising the debt ceiling, vote to increase the nation's deficit by $900 billion over 2 years?

Jane Bryant Quinn on the Tax Cuts

"...The deal eliminates Obama’s signature tax cut, Making Work Pay.

...Low-income families got more from Making Work Pay than they will from the reduction in their payroll taxes, so their tax bill will go up.

Taxes for about 5.7 percent of federal, state, and local government employees will rise, too.

They pay into public pension systems instead of Social Security.

They lose the Making Work Pay credit and gain nothing from the payroll tax cut.

...Rising federal deficits look like the answer for sparking near-term growth, but they also risk America’s position in the world.

Creditworthy governments normally spend no more than 10 percent of their revenues to service their debt. The United States gets wiggle room, because of the country’s underlying strength.

But if we start paying 14 percent of revenues, as we might in 2015, the markets could turn on the dollar  – reducing its value, driving interest rates sharply higher, kicking the stock market down, and tumbling the world into another deep recession.

...Given the options, economist Sinai would choose spending cuts and slower growth, regardless of the harm. His fear is that the global market will suddenly force austerity on us, as it has with Ireland and Greece. ...he reads bad signs into the recent spikes in long-term interest rates."

Jane

Could US Senator John Kerry charge every US child $12,000 to vote himself about $500,036 in Tax Cuts over two years?

If John Kerry makes about $5.5 million per year, (2004)
and could save about $250,018 per year in taxes by voting for Obama's Tax Deal,
could Senator Kerry vote himself about $500,036 over two years?

…………………............…………Tax Cuts Extended…………….Tax Cuts Expired

Adjusted Gross Income……………$5,500,000…………………$5,500,000?

Tax Liability……………………...…..$1,888,221.................... $2,138,239?

Average Tax Rate………………………..33.80%......................... 38.28%?

$2,138,239 – $1,888,221 = about $250,018 x 2 years = about $500,036?

.

.
Tax Calculator

Tax Plan: Tax Cuts Extended vs. Tax Cuts Expired?
Tax Year: 2011?
AMT Patch not in effect?

$900,000,000,000 / 75,000,000 Kids = $12,000 per American Child?

$12,000 per American Child "Obama Tax Cut Plan would Increase Taxes for the Poor"

"...the plan would actually slightly increase taxes for the poorest Americans, economists say -- at a time when some leaders in Washington are trying to bring attention to the nation's widening income disparity.

...the "Make Work Pay" credit enacted under Mr. Obama's stimulus plan would be allowed to expire, and a one-year payroll tax cut would be enacted in its place.

Those on the bottom rung of the income ladder, however, are at a disadvantage. Individuals making under $20,000 per year or households making under $40,000 would receive more money from the "Make Work Pay" credit, since the two percent payroll tax cut would amount to less than $400 or $800.

The difference amounts to just a couple hundred dollars per year...

..."A few dollars a week can mean your bus fare getting to work"...

"If you're making only making $10,000 a year, you're only getting $200 a week
-- and $4 out of $200 is serious money"

"It is a big deal if it's the difference between having lunch one day or not having lunch that day,
or putting breakfast on the table for the kids."

...Mr. Obama campaigned on the platform of revising the tax code to address income disparity.

"This turns that on its head""

Stephanie Condon

$12,000 per American child, and Larry Summers says, "materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip"

"Raising the direst alarm yet, the Obama administration warned fellow Democrats on Wednesday that if they defeat the big tax-cut compromise detested by many liberals they could jolt the entire nation back into recession.
 
...Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, told reporters that if the measure isn't passed soon, it will "materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip" recession.
 
...Summers' remarks contrasted with Obama's comments at a news conference Tuesday. "We don't have the danger of a double-dip recession," the president said then, noting the impact of the 2009 stimulus bill and other measures meant to steady the economy."...
 
David Espo, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Ben Feller, Stephen Ohlemacher and Erica Werner

"This package would make nearly the entire individual revenue code permanently temporary, which is horrible tax policy."

"On the heels of the work of the fiscal commission ...the White House and members of Congress choose to engage in a negotiation that involves adding increasingly larger amounts to the debt? It's utterly exasperating," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget...
 
...David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general "...this 'deal' is not reasonable from an economic, fiscal and social equity perspective."
 
Walker laments that the package -- which could cost between $800 billion and $900 billion according to unofficial estimates - includes not only extended tax cuts, but new tax cuts and spending increases "none of which are planned to be paid for with spending cuts in other areas."
 
Diane Rogers, chief economist of the Concord Coalition, put it this way: "Rather than mutual sacrifice, it is mutual grabbing. We can never manage to 'trade off' -- we only 'pile on.'"
 
Tax expert Howard Gleckman, meanwhile, called the deal "odious" And he scathingly summarized the negotiations this way: "You have a bad and expensive idea. I have a bad and expensive idea. Let's compromise and pass both of our bad ideas."
 
But more substantively, his main complaint is that the deal would wreck havoc with the tax code.
 
"This package would make nearly the entire individual revenue code permanently temporary, which is horrible tax policy."
 
Jeanne Sahadi

"...Under the agreement reached with Republicans, the top 1 percent will receive breaks of about $70,000."

"...families with an income near the median of $55,000 would owe about $2,700 less in taxes than if the Bush-era cuts had been allowed to expire.
 
A two-income couple earning $146,000 would owe about $7,000 less than if the tax cuts were allowed to expire, and about $3,400 less than they did in 2009.
 
...the $120 billion payroll tax reduction...will nonetheless lead to higher tax bills for individuals with incomes below $20,000 and families that make less than $40,000.
 
The estate tax — which was allowed to lapse this year and was scheduled to resume at a rate of 55 percent on most assets above $1 million — will be reinstated under less onerous terms. Estates over $5 million will be subject to a 35 percent tax.
 
The proposal will also maintain the current rates on dividends and capital gains, averting scheduled increases to ordinary income and 20 percent, respectively.
 
The marginal tax rate on high incomes will also remain unchanged.
 
The top brackets had been scheduled to increase to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, from 33 percent and 35 percent.

Is the tax package borrowing from future taxpayers
to pacify the present populace?

...Under the agreement reached with Republicans, the top 1 percent will receive breaks of about $70,000."
 
DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

If there are about 75 million kids in the United States of America, will congress and the president charge them $12,000 a piece to bail out the financial mismanagement of their parents?

$900,000,000,000 / 75,000,000 Kids = $12,000 per American Child

What should happen to economies
in which elders consume more than their children’s inheritance?

Washington Post: No mention of the cost of the tax deal. Where is the press?

Obama's tax cut extension part of strategy to show bipartisanship

ABC: No mention of the $900 billion cost of the tax deal

Tax Cut Deal: President Obama Announces Agreement on Bush Cuts

Marketwatch: No mention of $900 billion two year cost

Obama announces deal on tax cuts, benefits

Karl Denninger on the tax cut deal

"Estimates are that the package will add $500 billion to the deficit ($900 billion over two years)
from where we are now.

If that's anything close to accurate we're in big trouble
 - we're running $1.6 trillion now! 

I'd hope there are some offsets in there and this isn't the net change
- it's difficult at this hour to know
- because if it is net change we're going to hit the wall once the market figures this out.

This isn't done yet
- there are people who deeply unhappy with the deal on both sides of the aisle. 

...I hope I'm wrong on the numbers - but I fear I'm right.

A $2 trillion deficit would put our deficit over 14% of GDP next year,
which is higher than the level that triggered the explosion in Greece and Ireland.

And there is nothing in this proposal that offsets with spending cuts,
so as far as I can tell, it's all going right on the credit card.

I'm all for tax cuts provided we match 'em dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts. 

Even better is two dollars of spending cuts for a dollar of tax cuts. 

But of course we didn't get that, which makes this a really bad deal for America all around."

Karl Denninger

AP: No mention of the $900 billion cost over two years

Obama, GOP reach deal to extend tax cuts