Perspective On Romney’s 15% Tax Rate

For the average American making $40k per year, being taxed at 28%, to match what Romney paid –at 15%–in one year of taxes, it would take them about 400 years to accomplish. The average guy making $40k is paying roughly $8-10k in taxes per annum. If he/she calls the police or fire department once, the gov’t will likely lose money on him. Romney is paying roughly $3 million per annum, which in turn finances all of the federal horseshit people clamor for. The tax rate, in many respects, is irrelevant–actual dollars is what’s important.

Do the math.

Romney’s tax documents are voluminous and extraordinarily complex, and his opponents are sure to comb through them in the coming days. They reflect the far-flung finances of one of the richest men ever to run for president. His 2010 tax return alone runs to 203 pages, crammed with information about foreign holdings, contributions to family trusts — and even a Swiss bank account.

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What an interesting turn of events in blocking the keystone pipeline deal…

If you do not understand why the purchase of oil in anything but the greenback is bad then you need to replace the dung in your head for a brain.

Full article

Some commentary from 6 top economists…

Sources tell Gaspirino that regulators pressured MS to cut cash bonuses…

…and the global rally continues

INSIGHT – In MF Global, JPMorgan again at center of a financial failure

REUTERS – In late October, as MF Global Holdings Ltd teetered toward bankruptcy, Jon Corzine phoned his close-knit circle of Wall Street friends for help.

His firm, facing demands from customers and other firms for cash, needed to sell billions of dollars in securities to raise the money. As the week progressed, MF Global executives came to believe that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N), one of MF Global’s primary bankers and a middleman moving that cash, was dragging its feet in forwarding the funds.

Corzine phoned Barry Zubrow, then JPMorgan’s chief risk officer, to question the slow payments. Corzine also called William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to update him on MF Global’s status and told him that payments were slow to arrive from JPMorgan and others. Dudley said he’d monitor the situation.

The delays contributed to a serious cash shortage at MF Global, according to people familiar with the matter. These people say the firm started trading one day in late October with $600 million in cash and spent the whole day selling securities, only to end with just $200 million in cash.

By adhering to procedure and not cutting MF Global any slack, these people say, JPMorgan was able to slow the delivery of funds, worsening MF Global’s distress. As a result, they note, hundreds of millions of dollars of MF Global money may be still stuck in accounts at JPMorgan.

Read the rest here.

Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would “definitely” close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil.

Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of parliament’s foreign affairs and national security committee, issued the warning in respone to a decision by the European Union on Monday  to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.

The Strait of Hormuz is the vital link between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

It is also one of the most strategic chokepoints in the world when it comes to oil transit.

Read the rest here.

By John Matson | Scientific American

Last night the sun unleashed a flash of radiation called a solar flare, along with a generous belch of ionized matter that is now racing toward Earth at thousands of kilometers a second. The solar storm front from the ionized blast, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), should arrive tomorrow morning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The forecasters called the event the strongest solar storm since 2005.

When a solar storm hits Earth, the impact can have a number of consequences, especially in Earth orbit and at high latitudes, where the planet’s geomagnetic shielding is thin. Solar storms can knock out satellites, cause blackouts, and force aircraft to avoid polar routes. Storms can also bring the aurora borealis, a.k.a. the northern lights, down to unusually low latitudes. (You can see a slideshow of recent low-latitude auroras here.)

Read the rest here.

By Michael A. Lewis, PhD. and Anthony Watts

Some one or some organization is attempting to influence the upcoming annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Read the rest here.

By Lu Wang – Jan 23, 2012 12:01 AM ET

Trading (MVOLUSE) in U.S. stocks fell to the lowest level since at least 2008 amid mutual fund withdrawals and Wall Street job cuts.

An average of 6.69 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges in the 50 days ended Jan. 18, the fewest on record in Bloomberg data starting three years ago that excludes over-the- counter venues. On the New York Stock Exchange, volume has tumbled to the lowest level since 1999, the data show.

The slowdown in trading shows that investors remain skittish after five years of withdrawals from mutual funds that buy U.S. equities and one of the most volatile years on record for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. While the benchmark index is having its best January rally since 1997, securities firms around the world cut more than 200,000 jobs last year.

“Investor confidence is shaky at the very least,” Mark Turner, head of U.S. sales trading at Instinet Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview on Jan. 20. His firm handles about 4 percent of the total daily U.S. equity volume. “We need to see the U.S. economy improve. We need to see some sort of a plan in place to deal with Europe’s debt crisis before the market gains some confidence. At that point, we’ll start to see an increase in volume.”

Read the rest here.

By STEVEN RATTNER

Published: January 20, 2012

WITH little fanfare, a dangerous notion has taken hold in progressive policy circles: that the amount of money borrowed by the federal government from Americans to finance its mammoth deficits doesn’t matter.

Debt doesn’t matter? Really? That’s the most irresponsible fiscal notion since the tax-cutting mania brought on by the advent of supply-side economics. And it’s particularly problematic right now, as Congress resumes debating whether to extend the payroll-tax reduction or enact other stimulative measures.

Here’s the theory, in its most extreme configuration: To the extent that the government sells its debt to Americans (as opposed to foreigners), those obligations will disappear as aging folks who buy those Treasuries die off.

If that doesn’t seem to make much sense, don’t be puzzled — it doesn’t. Government borrowing is still debt that must eventually be paid off, just as we were taught in introductory economics.

Failing to repay the debt would mean not only the ugliness of default but also depriving the next generation of whatever savings their parents parked in government bonds.

Read the rest here.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF ECONOMIC POLICY WORK

By James Pethokoukis

January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm

A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself:

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.

The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary. …  The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.

Read the rest here. You won’t believe it!

Despite great numbers the stock is down on forward guidance…

INTC, AMD, MU, BRCM, QCOM, ARMH, SNDK, ALTR, AMAT, TXN

Zig when they zag is what i say, but perhaps a bearish outlook on U.S. paper is warranted.