The DJ is reporting that the UK raised its terror threat level to ‘Severe’ from ‘Substantial.’ They define ‘Substantial’ as an ‘attack is a strong possibility’ whereas ‘Severe’ is defined as ‘an attack is highly likely.’
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Overall household indebtedness is up from $7 trillion to almost $10 trillion since 2000. On this sum, we estimate, the American consumer has an annual interest bill of more than $500 billion; a sum, by the way, that vastly exceeds his current income growth." —Kurt Richebacher
Knowing that the vote over the weekend in Greece was really a referendum on Euro membership, a majority of the Greek Parliament said yes to staying. European Finance Ministers meet again on Wednesday to solidify the 2nd bailout package for Greece at the same time hopefully a deal is consummated between Greece and its creditors this week. The Greek 14.5b euro bond that matures on March 20th is up by 2 pts. The optimism that all will be completed and contained AGAIN to Greece has yields lower in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The iTraxx Financial Index is also narrower by...
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January 22nd, 2010 at 7:12 pm
I don’t see this in the headlines yet but I did catch an interesting post on Yahoo,
“Dear Employees:
As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that
Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will
increase in a BIG way.
To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about
10%. But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state
of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead.
This has really been bothering me since I believe we are family here and I
didn’t know how to choose who would have to go.
So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lots and found sixty
‘Obama’ bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will
be the ones to let go. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this
problem. They voted for change…… I gave it to them.
I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.
THE BOSS “
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Yeah, because if McCain had won we would have not lost any jobs at all.
Right.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:53 pm
That’s nice, john…except Obama cut taxes and fees for most businesses in America.
You fail.
Tax cuts for companies
Total: $51 billion
* $15 billion: Allowing companies to use current losses to offset profits made in the previous five years, instead of two, making them eligible for tax refunds.
* $13 billion: to extend tax credits for renewable energy production (until 2014).
* $11 billion: Government contractors: Repeal a law that takes effect in 2012, requiring government agencies to withhold three percent of payments to contractors to help ensure they pay their tax bills. Repealing the law would cost $11 billion over 10 years, in part because the government could not earn interest by holding the money throughout the year.
* $7 billion: Repeal bank credit: Repeal a Treasury provision that allowed firms that buy money-losing banks to use more of the losses as tax credits to offset the profits of the merged banks for tax purposes. The change would increase taxes on the merged banks by $7 billion over 10 years.
* $5 billion: Bonus depreciation which extends a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up its depreciation through 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009#Tax_cuts_for_companies
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:27 pm
The post is a joke and not mine.
But what is the market doing? Why is Obama coming after banks and Barney Freddie and Fannie? Is this what I was thinking a purposeful crash of the stock market to force money into government treasuries? I originally figured the PPT would become the Plunge Positive Team and purposely negate the futures OR stop upholding the stock market futures. It sure seems this way.
It’s interesting that major gains were made on banking stocks within the last year and if someone sold these gains inside of one year they don’t get the same tax rate. Is the gov’t doing this on purpose to increase the tax money made on the stock sales which are short term gains instead of long term? There’s quite a huge difference in the tax rate, but only if your income is high enough.
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:22 am
One tin-foil hat, please. Size small.
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Here is the proper 2010 response to “The Boss”:
Dear employees,
I believe in shared sacrifice, and since the buck stops here, I am going to be the first to sacrifice for the good of my company and employees. First, since I am a millionaire many times over, I will take a 50% pay cut until further notice and give myself no bonus as well. All of my top executives and managers will do the same, of course, as we all prospered during the good times, now it is time to sacrifice to keep our company afloat during bad times.
I will also forgo all perks, such as my company car (Mercedes), company trips to Vegas, and of course, no more campaign contributions to my favorite politicians, even though I will miss the photo ops and rubber chicken dinners, as well as the opportunity to lobby for lower income and corporate taxes.
We will try to retain all current employees, but if we have to “downsize” my son-in-law will be the first to go, as well as one or two of the top executives, as I just figured out that just one of them makes more than 30 of our lower level employees combined. And we will stop the plans to ship our manufacturing jobs to China and our IT and call center jobs to India, because it is anti-American and the wrong thing to do.
I also propose that all employees have the same health insurance and profit sharing packages that the executives enjoy, which will now be free for everyone, not just the executives. If benefits must be reduced because costs are too high, then everyone’s benefits will be reduced at the same rate in the spirit of equal sacrifice.
I know that this plan will be considered a radical departure from the culture of greed that has infected America for the past 30 years, but it is the right thing to do.
Also, feel free to express your constitutional rights to free speech by displaying all manner of political bumper stickers as it is unAmerican and unconstitutional to insist that employees must vote a certain way in order to keep their jobs.
Hopefully, these cost cutting measures will help our company survive and prosper.
The Boss
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Back to the UK “terror threat level” … I might hazard a guess that the people in the UK are safer than they normally would be, based on the many spikes in our own threat assessments during the life of the Homeland Defense bureaucracy, and the observation that it seems that the only acts of domestic terror (other than those by our own home-grown lunatics) have occurred when the threat level was mild. The plan to attack Fort Dix, the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the domestic training camp (outed by a video store clerk) — none of these (to the best of my recollection) occurred during any period of heightened suspicions by our “watchdogs”, and all were basically undone by civilians.
It this pattern happens to fit the Brits as well, then a “Severe” threat level should allow folks there to sleep well at night.
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:32 pm
“crash of the stock market to force money into government treasuries?”
& I’ll do a repost of mine from another thread and waste (yes waste bytes)
“the GOP works the class warfare masterfully .. middle class is either management or union .. under class is not union and near minimum wage .. upper class needs wealth protection”
Let Me Be Clear – IMO a real market solution to abuse in CEO wages .. shareholder abuse .. commonfolk abuse .. via a real progressive % in regular savings accounts for folks who have lives making the world go round with their hands & feet and baby making .. not just sliding money into this space that space outta this space into that space .. let the VCs borrow money like the rest of us .. and From US