Elaine Meinel Supkis
All the non-G7 nations are mocking the IMF and the entire G7 business. Led by Russia and China, they are trying to get the US and Europe to do something about their financial problems that are threatening the world's banking and trade systems. And it is time to visit Japan yet again, this always bothers me, how the US ignores the challenges of Japan and how the West focuses only on China but can't see how this interacts with Japan and how Japan is not on our side at all. Time to visit the IMF and the CIA web sites to talk about all the numbers and facts pertaining to this matter of US/Japan trade.
Brazil and Argentina chastised the International Monetary Fund for its failure to foresee the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market.Ministers from the two nations, which have required rescues from the IMF in the past two decades, said the fund should scrutinize richer countries as much as emerging economies. The call for equal treatment was echoed by the Group of 24, a collection of officials from developing countries.
``Allow me to point out the irony,'' Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega told the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank in Washington. ``Countries that were references for good governance, of standards and codes for the financial systems, these are the very countries facing serious problems of financial fragility, putting at risk the prosperity of the world economy.''
So far, China hasn't bothered with chiding the IMF. This is because the IMF is impotent due to lack of banking power. The Brazilian and Agentinian ministers are doing the slapping for China. Both go to China for funding now, not the IMF. So they are emboldened to the point of open sassy back talk. The G7 dwarves just had their meeting and ended it in the traditional way: yelling at China while Japan stands to one side, sniggering. While I was visiting the Deep Water Ports in New Jersey, I noted that the Japanese ships were cloaked in anonymity while the Chinese ships had huge names painted on their sides. I constantly harp about Japan because of this cloaking device they use.
But the devices’ creators also argue that Japan’s ideas about crime prevention are a product of deeper cultural differences. While Americans want to protect themselves from criminals, or even strike back, the creators say many Japanese favor camouflage and deception, reflecting a culture that abhors self-assertion, even in self-defense.“It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms. Tsukioka said. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.” She said her vending machine disguise was inspired by a trick used by the ancient ninja, who cloaked themselves in black blankets at night.
Ninjas didn't cloak themselves because they were scared, they did this so they could secretly assassinate troublesome people and worked in the pay of various powerful lords who dueled with each other for political and economic power. The fact that the European and American negotiators will sit and talk openly about how to save their economies as Japan's Ninja negotiators sit there, smirking, is an amazing thing to me. Every time I try to warn people about this, they always say, 'Japan is in a depression, Elaine! Can't you see?' So I keep tearing at this issue like a frustrated terrier. Before I went to the port on Friday, I made a bet with myself, that the Japanese ships would be hard to identify. And as I suspected, this was correct.
The recent emergency meeting between China and Japan led me to believe the Japanese gave the Chinese various subtle signals which would lead me to suspect they would cease the currency wars. But if this was merely for Japan to stay silent, this was broken last week when a Japanese financier openly gloated that China's huge FOREX reserves would be defeated by clever, ninja Japanese financial FX moves that would force up the yuan.
Unfortunately for Japan, China reads the news and indeed, probably my own news service here (they know me, you see) so they now are making harsh moves to counteract the Japanese betrayal of their own possible secret accords. There are many ninja stars and blads thudding into walls here at night. The Dragon is every bit as proficient at this sort of Byzantine doings as the Japanese. Unlike the US which blunders about in the dark, falling into one net after another, blindly. Our technological edge which allowed the Europeans and Americans to pry open the Treasure Chests of China and Japan 150 years ago is now gone. We must use our wits again and this is lacking.
A senior Chinese official urged the international community here on Saturday to analyze the root causes of the recent financial turmoil and to make efforts to safeguard global financial stability."Activities in the major advanced economies slowed in the second quarter of 2007, posing significant downside risks to global growth," Wu Xiaoling, deputy governor of People's Bank of China said at the 16th meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee.
Credit market retrenchment in the United States may further dampen the housing market, suppressing consumption and investment, giving rise to potential risks of recession with a spillover effect on other countries, she warned.
"It is all the more urgent a priority to strengthen surveillance of the systematically important advanced economies in order to safeguard global financial stability and economic prosperity," said the Chinese official.
How droll. How funny. HAHAHA. Right on the heels this week of the G7 dwarves demanding China open its own bank vaults and let Japan root about there to find weaknesses to exploit, China slaps us smartly across our triple hell hound snouts. The Dragon loves fiscal stability. And it loves openess. So the US and Japan should join England in asserting control over all those pirate coves in the Caribbean! Of course, they won't and can't. Just this week, they began to whine that they NEED occult darkness in order to mine wealth out of the Outer Darkness where magicians operate! I drew a cartoon about that, showing a wizard explaining he would not bring light into the Hell Hound's cave.
China won't laugh to death. They can, with a straight face, lecture us back every time we attack them verbally. The whole world is watching and this is why Brazil and Argentina are now joining in. The G7 will be outnumbered and outgunned, verbally, by all other nations as one after another finally throws down the gauntlet and tells us off. This is a HUGE loss of face. We cannot ignore or underestimate this. Just as Russia and soon, China, are now openly embracing countries we are trying to desperately isolate. For example, North Korea isn't isolated anymore, it is slowly being engulfed by China and South Korea. For the last year, I have lauded China's massive diplomatic efforts which are now paying off. China knew that if China became strong, Europe, Japan and America would form an alliance to stop China's growth and power but the days were we could do this easily are long past. China has us by the throat.
I would suggest the US/EU/UK empire imagines Japan will perform some sort of ninja action on China's finances to defang the Dragon. I believe the Japanese think they can do this. But I would caution all of them, this is not possible. China has eyes and ears everywhere and they are not stupid. Not at all. The 'survival of the fittest' fights within the government of China which includes annihilation, insures the top dogs will be top dragons, not drooling idiots like in the West. China just had their latest 5 year purge and more 'young princes' whose daddies were top revolutionaries, in this case, Zeng, are being dethroned and thrown into the streets or worse. Unlike Japan where nepotism reigns supreme.
From the top article by Bloomberg:
Developing countries are now lecturing the IMF. The G-24 urged the organization to increase ``surveillance of advanced economies, putting as much focus in evaluating their vulnerabilities as it does in emerging-market economies.''Members of the group include Syria, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The list of these countries are important for they are ALL countries Hu or Wen have visited several times this last 2 years. The leaders of these nations talk regularly with the Chinese diplomats at their embassies or directly with Hu. We overlook this because we like to imagine everyone is banging on our door, hat in hand, begging for attention and money. Israel does this, only no hat in hand. They, like the Japanese, believe in the ninja method, cloaking their actions, hiding their intentions, manipulating from the dark.
From the Bloomberg article above:
``We recognize there are issues in the system that need to be addressed,'' Clay Lowery, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department, told reporters on a conference call from Washington. ``The biggest danger we can have is complacency.''Lowery attended a meeting yesterday between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and ministers from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay. He said they weren't critical of the U.S.
``I give a lot of credit to these Latin American countries,'' Lowery said. ``They have stabilized their finances.''
This is the level of diplomacy we have. With a straight face, Lowery says the South American and Central American nations have sabilized. They were at that meeting to see if the US was stabilizing! Not themselves! And of course, they weren't critical at that meeting, they attacked the US via the US power in the IMF! And for Lowery to warn us to not be complacent and then being complacent about his meeting which was a parody of a meeting, a poker face event where the participants ran outside and doubled up, laughing while Lowery trundled away, satisfied and utterly fooled...hahaha. Indeed, where do we get these people?
Don't tell me. I know where they come from. Time to visit the IMF headquarters to see what they think about all this.
From the IMF US economic counsellor and director of research there, Mr. Johnson:
In emerging market and developing countries, growth is expected to remain strong across all regions, albeit at a somewhat more moderate pace than the brisk growth we have seen over the past two years. This year we expect China and India will be the two largest contributors to global growth, measured in PPP terms. As noted in my foreword to the WEO, this is the first time based on the IMF's measurements that this will be the case. China is expected to grow by more than 11 percent in 2007, while India is expected to expand by 9 percent. Growth may moderate somewhat across emerging Asia in 2008, reflecting slower trade growth as well as some policy tightening in countries facing overheating pressures.
*snip*
Uncertainty about the impact of financial turmoil on real activity also reflects the unexpected ways in which the problems have spread. Like a forest that has not seen a fire in many years, a benign financial environment, including low volatility and unusually narrow risk spreads, had built up a sizable underbrush of risky loans, relaxed lending standards, and high leverage in certain areas. When problems ignited in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, the fire jumped in somewhat surprising ways to other areas. In other words, at least three important fire breaks that should have limited the impact of the crisis in U.S. subprime mortgages did not hold. One was obviously the impact on other parts of the U.S. credit markets, such as jumbo mortgages which traditionally involve less risky borrowers. The second jump was to banks. Revelation of the extent of bank exposures, including among European banks, to subprime mortgages in the U.S. through off-balance sheet vehicles have shaken confidence and squeezed liquidity in interbank markets. The third, and perhaps most surprising jump, was to commercial paper markets. Asset-backed commercial paper saw issuances curtailed and a sharp rise in spreads, and there were effects also on other kinds of commercial paper. These global funding strains, as you know, led to a run on a UK bank, a mortgage lender that was apparently not at all involved in U.S. subprime.These secondary fires are still being addressed through liquidity operations by major central banks, and their actions continue to help stabilize market conditions, but the smoke has not yet cleared. Interbank and commercial paper spreads have begun to ease, but money market conditions have definitely not yet returned to where we were before the turmoil began.
Central banks in advanced economies face a challenge in terms of restoring stability to the payments system while responding to the evolving macroeconomic risks. Central banks have been appropriately careful to distinguish between actions to restore liquidity and setting their policy stance to control inflation and support growth.
The complacency and inability to see grave dangers created by the US/UK/EU methodology for financial health is continuous in this interview. It is most unnerving. The other nations yelling at us right now are quite correct to pin the blame of this devolving economic situation on the US donkey. The US adamantly refuses to understand, we can't spend like fiends while producing nothing for export. Our oil consumption is the root cause of oil rising in price, not China. China's share is still smaller than ours and per capita, far behind our consumption. But we assume we have the right to consume as much oil as we want for as long as we wish.
None of the root problems are being addressed. For this FOOL, the American IDIOT to claim the pathetic patches on the banking and financial systems we created are working, is just beyond aggravating. It doesn't address fundamental problems and the most fundamental of them all is the US trade deficit.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said a fund created by some of the biggest banks to help revive the asset-backed commercial paper market should be in place by the end of the year.``It will be more valuable if it's up and running sooner,'' Paulson told reporters yesterday after a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations. ``It will take a while, but it should be done by the end of the year.''
Traders are becoming more pessimistic as losses on structured investment vehicles, which borrow in short-term markets to buy longer-dated assets, add to concern over the fallout from record U.S. mortgage foreclosures. Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to start a fund of as much as $80 billion to rescue the SIVs.
The number keeps dropping! Earlier, it was $100 billion. By the time it is set up, will it be $20 billion? This is one of the latest patches. Europe and the US poured in huge sums from August to today, trying desperately to get the banking system's gears going again. This huge, massive collapse is historic. The level of denial is historic. During all financial collapses, there is this period of denial. Everyone hopes the system runs of thinking postive, on not panicking, on waving wands and making wealth well out of the dark caves where it flowed earlier.
This latest, stupid scheme, is doomed to failure. The dark pools have emptied out and going there at night with bucket won't do any good at all. There is no water there to haul into our bank vaults. Facing the truth is life and death here. We can't patch it. We must face the truth about our trade deficits. And this, the world fears, above all, the Japanese fear this. Europe wants us to spend wildly. So does Japan. We sat with them in the G7 negotiations and all this was, all it did, was work towards keeping the US spending wildly on imports! The EXACT opposite of what we need.
The US should not be negotiating with Europe or Japan as if we are all in the same boat. We are rivals and they have a vested interest in keeping us in the position we are in now: going off the financial cliff. They are hoping we will come up with some elaborate and sneaky system to keep this status quo going. The magic of the Japanese .5% or less carry trade loans has exhausted itself and can no longer keep going due to the simple fact, everyone is now so deep in debt in the West, we and Japan, can no longer pile on more debt, we are at the point, we can't pay the interest rates anymore, even.
Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin said inflation measures that exclude food and energy costs are a ``better guide'' to underlying changes in prices.Changes in price indexes without food and energy ``provide a clearer picture of underlying inflation pressures,'' Mishkin said in the text of remarks to the HEC Montreal Macroeconomics and Monetary Policy Conference today. ``If the monetary authorities react to headline inflation numbers, they run the risk of responding to merely temporary fluctuations.''
Mishkin should be either arrested or put in cement boots and dropped into Bayonne Bay. He is a criminal mastermind. No sane person could say this in public. Social Security recipients just got the tinniest raise in payments this year, way below the rate of inflation. As sellers of goods drop prices due to the economic contraction, the inflation index magically falls. But since this drop off is due to consumers losing purchasing power due to a 5 year long hike in the price of commodities, energy and food, well! This isn't 'fluctuations', this is INFLATION. Big time. The Fed is supposed to keep the LIVING STANDARDS of the elderly from collapsing due to inflation. Yet they refuse to track the price of things the elderly must buy to stay alive. This will have political consequences, of course.
Let's go visit Japan to see what is going on there yet again, from the Asahi:
The Cabinet Office on Wednesday presented its estimates of long-term projections for social security programs and the revenues needed to pay for them to the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. We welcome this development if it kicks off long-awaited head-on debate on the issue. According to the Cabinet Office, additional tax revenues of between 14 trillion and 31 trillion yen would be needed in fiscal 2025 to maintain current levels of health and elderly care benefits. If those revenues are sourced from the consumption tax, the rate will reportedly need to be raised to between 11 and 17 percent from the current 5 percent.
OK: Japan is again, debating raising the sales tax. 17%???? Wow. Kiss any economic activity in Japan, sayonara. The goverment can't raise income taxes, they are much higher than in the West. On the other hand, they don't do Social Security taxes which hammer the US work force very hard. They pay for the elderly via the general government funds.
Japan's government debt, already the highest in the industrialised world, mushroomed to a record high of Y795.8 trillion ($A9.5 trillion) at the end of June, according to a report released by the Finance Ministry.
The latest figure marked an increase of Y14.3 trillion ($A170 billion) from the end of March, the ministry said. The amount is equivalent to about Y6.24 million ($A75,000) for every Japanese.
Japan has relied on government bond issues to make up for falling tax revenues, turning into one of the world's most indebted countries.
Japan's public debt burden is almost 160 per cent of its GDP and already the highest in the industrialised world.
I have done many stories about Japan and the US government spending and debt levels. I get all sorts of numbers. This one is astonishing, if true. So far, this is not the final word on that matter. I read the Japanese news a great deal, daily, in fact, and never, never, do they mention the total in the headlines or pretty much anywhere. This level of denial matches the US. In this case, the Australian dollar was worth less than the US dollar but going backwards in time to see by how much takes too much time. All I know is, Japan's debt is, like Britain, its mirror image, nearly the same size as the US debt. Per capita, Japan is far worse off than the US. And this, without funding much of any military.
The US still has the ability to deal with its problems, we are not so far up the creek as many other nations including most of the other G7. But we are foolishly thinking we don't have to deal with all this due to this fact. We can go deeper into debt! Whoppee!
Only we are in deep trouble due to deindustrialization. This is much harder to regain. We can't wave wands and factories, appear. This is why Europe and Japan are clinging desperately to their own industrial bases! From Taxes in Japan:
The upper rate is now about 50%, isn't it? Imagine what this would do in tax-cutting America. These taxes are not enough to pay for running Japan. And since Japan doesn't encourage pay raises, this means their income tax goes DOWN, not up! Pay is being cut! Not raised.
I decided to translate the numbers above into dollars:
¥1,950,000 =$17,017
¥3,300,000 =$28,789
¥6,950,000 =$60,651
¥9,000,000 =$78,540
¥18,000,000 =$157,081
The overall pay scale in Japan is lower than the US. So many are at the ¥3 million level. With taxes taking 10%, this leaves them with $25,911 dollars. In the US, this is poverty level wages. You live in a very small box apartment...um...like many Japanese. Only this is the average wage and this is where we are heading, ourselves! Only not via deflation but inflation.
From the Asahi:
Advisers to the government have also been mulling ways to raise taxes when the nation's economic recovery takes firmer root.
They are even more turtle-like than the US. The ability to do anything has caused paralysis. On the other hand, when it comes to export trade and finance, suddenly Japan moves faster than a jack rabbit on a hot Texas highway dodging trucks! Zoom! The thing no one in Japan or the US talks about is the other side of the Japanese coin: not only do they not have a trade deficit, they have the world's #2 FOREX reserves so there is a HUGE amount of loot sitting inside of Japan, just sitting there! Its sole function: to keep the trade deficit with the US going.
Forex Margin Trading Firm Halts Ops On Subprime-Related LossesSAPPORO (Nikkei)--FX Sapporo Co., a company that brokers foreign exchange margin trading for individual investors, has fallen into a negative net worth due to losses in proprietary trading and been forced to suspended operations, The Nikkei learned Saturday.
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G-7 Pledges Efforts To Stabilize World Markets Amid Subprime WoesWASHINGTON (Kyodo)--Group of Seven financial leaders pledged a joint commitment Friday to do their utmost to quell world financial turmoil arising from the U.S. subprime mortgage market problem.
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Oops. The carry trade is collapsing, isn't it? The top Japanese financial news story is dire news indeed, the patches on the tires of the US/Japan carry trade system are now so full of holes, it looks like an army of rats chewed it to shreds! Right under it is the G7 story. Japan desperately wants this goofy, totally a-historical and financially impossible system to keep on running. Their entire economy is based on a unsustainable system built on lies and ninja deceptions!
Here are other headlines, illustrating my point, from the Nikkei again:
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So, Japan won't set up a Sovereign Wealth Fund? Why not? They have nearly a trillion to do this with! And of course, this would turn the spotlight on the Ninja himself! And he has to first put on his Coke costume so he can hide at the next G7 meetings. I would suggest a 'Dwarf' design. Time to look at the CIA's world facts figures:
A quarter of Japan's economy is industrial. Per capita income was $33,000 but it has been dropping off this last 5 years.
Here is the CIA figures for Japan's government debts:
And they still run the government in the red! Amazing. Why don't the G7 talk about this? Why isn't the IMF yelling about this? Ha! Japan has a huge, huge trade surplus! That's why!
Note the US numbers here: our workers earn $10,000 more than the Japanese...but not for much longer, I fear. Our industrial base is only 20% of our economy. This is 5% less than Japan. And a good hunk of our base is actually owned by Japan but the stats don't show this. We own none of the Japanese industrial base and this is a key element that doesn't get talked about by either our own officials or the ninja Japanese officials.
Japan and the US have opposite systems. This must be discussed more by the media and by our negotiators, not papered over all the time. Assuming we are playing on the same page when the Japanese aren't even playing the same instruments, much less, music, is childish. We have a tin ear.
Here is the CIA itself, talking about us!
Economy - overview:
The US has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world, with a per capita GDP of $43,500. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. US business firms enjoy greater flexibility than their counterparts in Western Europe and Japan in decisions to expand capital plant,to lay off surplus workers, and to develop new products. At the same time, they face higher barriers to enter their rivals' home markets than foreign firms face entering US markets. US firms are at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers and in medical, aerospace, and military equipment; their advantage has narrowed since the end of World War II. The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. [Elaine: HAHAHA, how did that slip in???] The response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 showed the remarkable resilience of the economy. The war in March-April 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq, and the subsequent occupation of Iraq, required major shifts in national resources to the military. The rise in GDP in 2004-06 was undergirded by substantial gains in labor productivity. Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage in the Gulf Coast region in August 2005, but had a small impact on overall GDP growth for the year. Soaring oil prices in 2005 and 2006 threatened inflation and unemployment, yet the economy continued to grow through year-end 2006. Imported oil accounts for about two-thirds of US consumption. Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups. The merchandise trade deficit reached a record $750 billion in 2006.
Wow, talk about a schizoid summary! Seems more than one hand at work. I bet the staff writing this was yelled at for telling the truth so the compromise was one truth per every third sentence. The part about firing workers here are directly connected to the 'worker productivity going up' part. That is code for cutting wages, we all know. I picture this as a devil and an angel writing it. 'Productivity is UP!' yells the demon. The angel then writes, 'But worker's wages are going DOWN!' And so on.
Import prices fell by 0.8 per cent in the September quarter and were down by 5.5 per cent for the year to September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.Within the total, the price of consumer goods fell by 1.0 per cent in the quarter and 4.0 per cent for the year.
In fact, prices for imported consumer goods have been declining for the best part of five years.
This has been caused by the combined effect of a rising exchange rate (up by 34 per cent in the past half decade) and the flood of goods onto global markets that have steady or falling prices - even in the currencies of the developing countries that export them.
China figures prominently on both counts, as a voracious consumer of Australia's minerals, whose soaring prices have propelled the exchange rate higher and as a producer of low-cost consumer goods.
Like Europe, Australia has the joys of a rising currency and is being flooded with manufactured goods from Asia. And the same thing is happening in Australia: the people aren't unhappy with their currency rising, they are glad they can buy lots of stuff from Asia. But like in Europe and the US, both the consumers and the Australian businesses there are going deep into debt. The banking mess is hitting all such nations which is why it did NOT touch Asia but hammered all the US/EU/UK systems.
Norway's 2008 budget, which is being discussed in parliament this week, gives them a new deal closer to the EU's system of a flat tax based on tonnage. Shipping profits would become exempt from tax. But the massive one-off price exacted by the centre-left government is the payment of NKr21 billion ($3.9 billion) of deferred tax liabilities built up under the old system—a burden that could cripple many companies.Now the air is thick with threats of Norwegian shipowners flocking to foreign flags, including the British “red duster”, when they want new ships (Britain's shipping-tax regime is one of the most benign in the EU).
This is the race to the bottom. England is very big on this. As poor Japan struggles to tax its own people, England merrily drops taxes in its many tax havens to 0%! Amazing. And Japan's money people, to escape high Japanese taxes, are flooding into these pirate coves, sailing ships with no flags, of course, no names painted on the sides. They want to do this in the dark so the Japanese tax payers stuck at home don't see the obvious.-
Speaking of "sassy back talk", have a look see at "Dear Dinosaurs", over at Asia Times Online:
"Then there is the ham-handed attempt by the three largest US banks to put together a rescue fund for the SIV (structured investment vehicles) sector. Among all the ideas that involved good money chasing bad, this one takes the cake. To think that none other than the US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson chaired this effort leaves the rest of us with an astoundingly bad taste in the mouth - forgive me for being impertinent, but aren't you guys supposed to be the policemen rather than the thieves?"
HAHAHA!
Posted by: Frank | October 21, 2007 at 01:05 PM
The Japanese can't win that race. The Fed & the US government have many more tools at their disposal to trash the dollar. The yen is now at 114 to the dolar. If it drops just a few more yen, the carry trade (already in trouble) will explode.
Frank, that is a very funny article. I like the Asia Times.
I don't think the banks' bailout fund was ever supposed to work. The banks are just throwing some chump change at the problem, so they can run to Uncle Sam when it fails, crying "We tried to fix it ourselves, but can't! Please fix it for us!"
Posted by: shargash | October 21, 2007 at 05:39 PM
The saving plan for the SIVs is a 3 card monty game.
And yes, China is laughing at us. Alas. We can't afford this. And yes, the US can trash the dollar faster than anyone on earth, even Zimbabwe and they are working on beating the Germans, for crying out loud!
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 21, 2007 at 10:43 PM
Where is the outrage over sky-high taxes, regulatory costs?
by Steve Higgins
7/15/07 - New Haven (CT) Register
"Reports last week from two nonprofit groups should serve as a wake-up call to Americans to start agitating for tax reform . . .
"On Monday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute reported that the cost to consumers of complying with federal regulations exceeded $1 trillion in 2006 . . . almost 10 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. It's nearly half the amount of government spending.
"Even more worrisome, the cost of complying with these multitudinous regulations exceeds the amount of individual income tax paid in 2006, about $998 billion, as well as corporate incomes taxes of $277 billion.
"According to the Washington, DC-based advocacy group [ Americans for Tax Reform ], the average American had to work through July 11 this year just to pay all federal, state and local taxes, as well as regulatory costs including workers' compensation and unemployment benefits.
"Congress should take one of two paths: Either cut tax rates and government spending drastically, or adopt the FairTax, an innovative proposal that would involve abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and its income tax and replacing it with a simple national sales tax."
--(End excerpts)--
. . . The U.S. income tax system and the U.S. economy are inter-related, and are in DIRE trouble. If we, the citizens of these United States, do not act aggressively to spread the FairTax plan with family, friends and associates - our "nest eggs" stand to be devastated through a coming economic meltdown (Summary with podcast: "Laurence J. Kotlikoff on Long-Term Fiscal Problems in the U.S.").
Politicians are putting demogoguery and pandering above responsible governing - and they're able to do it because Americans do NOT understand - at the "get go" - politicians' / bankers' hunger for ever-increasing shares of the working person's bi-weekly paycheck; Americans do NOT understand the totality of taxes they pay. The FairTax shines the "light of day" on this, putting citizens back in charge to forcefully demand spending reductons.
YOU AND I MUST ACT to mobilize public opinion, and get the FairTax enacted, because the signs point to a probable devaluation of the dollar (reissuance of an "Amero" ? - under a U.S.-sovereignty-busting North American Union ?).
[ NOTE: Does this help clarify your understanding of what's going on globally? a) Bush's persistence on rewarding illegal immigration? b) the North American Highway now under construction in Texas (to stream cheap labor into the covertly-planned North American Union marketplace designed to compete with 21st-century China market? c) the gradual increase in value of the Chinese yuan by China corresponding to China's economic growth? (This will result in the dumping of dollar-denominated debt as its manufacturing economy grows stronger - which guarantees devaluing and ushering-in of the Amero.) ]
Keep in mind, this NAU strategy - supported by the "super-rich" (member-owners of the Fed) - together with their politician buddies who want NOTHING to do with FairTax - runs contrary to simply making the U.S. a "tax free zone" for business under the FairTax. Politicians and bankers lose power when the U.S. is returned to a "savings-driven economy" from a "debt/interest-driven" economy).
Powerful "elites," members of political and monied-interest "clubs" reaching into the halls of power in Washington, depend on keeping you and me uninformed of their plans. It is up to YOU and ME to ACT - and not live in a state of denial - based on what we now know is clearly happening to our financial futures.
After you consult the Kotlikoff interview (above):
• (If you're a member of your State FairTax organization) Contact your state or local FairTax Director to learn what you can do.
• (If you're just learning about the FairTax bill) Join FairTax.org here: Scrap The CODE, NOW !
Posted by: Ian | October 22, 2007 at 02:31 AM
The flatter the taxes, the more unfair. And the more they make the rich, richer and the rich then run off to 0% tax havens across the planet.
0% taxes don't work.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 22, 2007 at 10:56 AM
What is worse is, all the yappers screaming about social security and paying for the poor are utterly happy with MILITARY ADVENTURES and if they ring up half a trillion a year in useless stuff that doesn't protect America, they are quite content.
I despise them. First, they should cut back military spending, We can all urge Congress to do this and vote for a President who will do this. If one is a right winger, this means supporting Ron Paul. Left winger, support Kucinich.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 22, 2007 at 11:01 AM
And tell the rich to stop using our roads and highways, airports, trains, public buildings and services, and utility companies because it was really the former middle class and the poor who have been paying the significant taxes for this infrastructure. Since supply side was enacted, the trend in trade and budget deficits has been downhill. It's time to upgrade the infrastructure, but there is no money to do it.
Posted by: Teddy | October 22, 2007 at 11:28 AM
let's join our hands together to stop this kind of wrong doings. It may risk lives in the future if we just let them continue.
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