It is pretty well known that Barack Obama says he wants to give a tax cut to 95% of Americans, those earning (and I emphasize “earning”) less than $250,000. I’ll tell you right now, according to this criteria, I am supposedly getting a tax cut. Whether or not he is being truthful, we shall discuss later. But for argument’s sake, let’s just say our taxes are really getting cut. What is lesser known is that this is not actually a tax cut, but is instead a tax credit. Check that, it is not even a tax credit because people who pay NO income tax whatsoever will be receiving a check from money taken from the so-called wealthy. And this is no one time deal. This is a permanent payment he is proposing. This is a redistribution of income disguised as a tax cut to create class warfare to get the vote of the poor and middle class. This is welfare! This is socialism!!! This is Barack Obama disguised as Karl Marx in a Robin Hood costume. One of the best things Bill Clinton did was to reduce welfare and dependence upon government. Now a few short years it is making a come back. Are you willing to sacrifice the soul of this country for a small tax cut that may benefit you personally in the short run but will damage the economy and captialism as we know it in the long run? Obama does not believe in trickle down economics, but instead believes in trickle up economics which makes about as much sense as a waterfall running backward. Let’s just keep lowering the bar for everyone instead of raising it. That’s a sure fire formula for success.
Just so you know, the tax cut is also a Trojan Horse. He doesn’t mention how he supports a rollback of the Bush tax cuts which will affect EVERYBODY. He doesn’t mention how he will raise the Social Security Wage Base from $85,000 to unlimited. This will affect anyone making over $85,000. He doesn’t mention how he will raise the capital gains tax from 15% to 25% which will affect all investors and cripple a struggling economy. So now that you know that you’re not really getting that wonderful socialist credit, is it still worth moving our political system toward socialism? Do we really think Europe is a model worth emulating? Is it worth having Pelosi, Reid, and Obama decide the future of our country? The future of the Supreme Court? The future of our national defense? The future of our economy?
I didn’t think so.
I am currently watching the Patriots get embarrassed by the Chargers. Tom Brady picked a great time to take the year off. Matt Cassell is getting sacked at the 2nd highest rate in the NFL. The offensive line isn’t blocking anyone or maybe Cassell is just indecisive and can’t get rid of the ball quickly. The Pats defensive line can’t get to the quarterback. The rest of the once vaunted defense can’t stop anybody. Pats cornerback Deltha Neal, whom I have never heard of, is getting toasted time and again. It’s time to pull Matt Cassell. I was really rooting for him but it’s clear he is not the person to lead this team. Too bad Brett Favre is not available. For the most part the team is the same except for Brady. It would seem as though the age old question of is it the quarterback or the coach that makes the team great has been answered although the way the team is playing now, they might make Tom Brady look human also. Stay home with Giselle, Tom. Maybe Belichick will get you some better protection for next year.
We were told passing the $700 billion bailout would calm the markets and save us from disaster. The DOW is under $9000 and my 401k is down 23% year to date. WHAT THE HELL???!!!!! This is ridiculous. I’m trying as hard as I can to keep it in perspective and have faith in American capitalism, but I have to admit it gets more difficult each day. I certainly have no faith in government, in either party. Yesterday I said, “Well, the Dow was this low just 4 years ago. Back then we thought the market would never break $10,000. Today I can say, “Well, the DOW was this low just 5 years ago. Five years ago I didn’t feel as though I was in financial trouble, but today I’m worried. I have a feeling a lot of people are panicking and yanking money out of their mutual funds. I don’t really see the point. For that strategy to work, the market would need to drop a substantial bit more and I’d be smart enough to buy in at the bottom. I know I’m not smart enough to figure that out. Besides I’m not going to retire for another 25 years. Knowing my luck, I’ll sell it all tomorrow and the market will jump 1000 points. I’ll end up buying it all back at a loss.
WHAT THE HELL IS PAULSON DOING WITH ALL THAT MONEY??? I picture him rolling around in it laughing and taking pictures. He sure is taking his time distributing it… as if it would really do any good.
Common sense tells me though that the irrational panic selling is no where near the end. I’m sure eventually the market will rebound even if it’s not during this year and certainly not before the election. It was a good run Senator McCain. It’s too bad the best man is probably going to win this time and it has nothing to do with Senator Obama. He is going to win by default. He’ll be the Accidental President.
The gurus like to tell you that when the market is low that you’re buying more shares, but my 401k only invests my contributions once per month. The amount I’m going to buy in the near future is nothing compared to the amount I’ve already bought which are the ones I’m concerned about. If only Paulson had been honest with us, I wouldn’t have bought the crap sandwich that told us $700 billion would make everything better and left my money where it is. While my money is rapidly evaporating along with possibly my future employment opportunities, AIG is getting more bailout money after they spent half a million dollars getting massages at a resort.
Might I say, it was absolutely the wrong time to allow short selling again. I never liked short selling and betting against success. It turned Wall Street into Vegas. Short selling perpetuates bear markets.
I assume everyone else feels sick to their stomach as well and hopes that the madness ends soon.
John McCain pissed me off last night. His first proposal was absurd; buying bad mortgages and renegotiating the payments based on the new home value so people can remain in the homes they couldn’t afford. Last night McCain said health care is a responsibility and not a right so how did owning a home suddenly become a right. What ever happened to renting? Is there some shame in that? How tempting is it for me to just stop paying my mortgage so that John McCain will buy my house and let me continue to live there?
Despite my annoyance with this latest idea of his, McCain is still the best choice by a country mile. By all accounts John McCain should be winning handily. He has the experience. He has a strong, conservative woman on the ticket. He wants to cut taxes and freeze spending. He wants to freeze the growth rate of spending, not actually cutting spending though. He wants to save the environment and get off foreign oil. He wants to win the war on terror.
But for some reason he is not winning. He is losing to a slick newcomer who really has no experience or record to speak of especially on the economy. He has never run a business nor had any executive experience. Somehow this makes Obama more of an expert on the economy even though his plan is to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. He literally wants to tax the rich and give it to people who don’t even pay taxes. He said there is no trickle down economics in the debate last night. So I guess he thinks that poor people create jobs somehow. He wants to increase taxes on the pseudo wealthy and small businesses. He wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts which will increase EVERYBODY’s taxes including the 95% he said he’s not going to affect. He wants to raise the Social Security Wage Base which will further raise taxes on those making over $85,000, not the $250,000 he always claims. He wants to raise the cap gains tax from 15% to 25%-28%. That’s really good for investing in a weak economy. On top of that he refuses a spending freeze preferring to use a scalpel than an axe. In plain English that means he’s cutting nothing. If Obama looked and sounded like John Kerry, (imagine John Kerry with no record) he’s be losing handily by now. In debates and interviews Obama literally says nothing and makes it sound like something profound.
I don’t expect a presidential candidate to be a great debater or a perfect speaker or in perfect shape or attractive (although I don’t mind this at all about Governor Palin). All that stuff is meaningless crap. To me, I only care about are you right on most of the issues I care about, do you have a record to back it up, and when you say you will do something that I can trust you to keep your word. John McCain wins on all accounts.
Sarah Palin said today that Obama is going to claim that he just recently became aware of Ahmedinejhad’s radical background.
I thought the bailout was “The Answer”. Stocks have done nothing but tank since they passed the plan. It’s a good thing I’m not going to retire for another 25 years. I won’t even look at my 401k. I can’t.
With the nation in an economic crisis, Barack Obama is leading in the polls. I do not understand this at all. Any reasonable person would understand that Obama’s financial plan would harm the economy, not help it. Yet somehow Obama is leading all polls regarding the economy. He has absolutely NO economic experience. None. No business or executive experience either. Yet people think he is more qualified than John McCain just because he is not a Republican for some reason. Make sure you are not just voting for Obama because taxing the rich will make you feel better or that you are somehow punishing George Bush. Punishing the rich will punish everybody. We need investment in the markets, not in the government. We’ve already seen what the government can do with your money. Don’t give your money to Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. They really did a great job “saving” Wall Street last week. We just bought a $700 billion hammer.
The Hoover Raiders 115lbs lost their first game of the year 12-0 to Trussville yesterday. It was 6-0 going into the last few minutes so we had a chance. They were a good team and we didn’t play to our potential. We’re itchin to get a second crack at them in the playoffs.
As quite a few people are calling the financial bailout plan a crap sandwich, I’m starting to think they are right. They had me pretty worried with all the armageddon references. I was buying into the bailout plan. After all, who wants to be jobless and homeless? For something that is supposed to be the biggest crisis in 80 years that had to definitely be solved yesterday or the world would end, I find it amazing that the entire House and Senate have adjourned for Rosh Hashanah. There are 30 Jews in the House and 13 in the Senate so apparently nothing can get done by anyone else for the next two days even though the stock market is open and everyone else in this country is working. If this crisis was as important and devastating as they say it is, I would expect these people to work on Christmas Day. But seeing as they are not, and seeing as the market rebounded today, I’m getting the distinct impression that they are all full of crap. Sure the market tanked 777 points yesterday but it came back 500 today. I have had it with all of them. Vote them all out, Democrats and Republicans. This is the worst Congress in the history of the United States.
The Democrats could have passed this bailout bill all by themselves but failed miserably. The Democrats got so caught up in partisan blame and anti-business rancor that they completely blew their big chance to “save the country”. The GOP voted their conscience and voted with the sentiment of the majority of Americans that this is a bad deal. You can blame the GOP if you like but enough Democrats agreed with them to stop the deal in its tracks. Because of this defeat and the biggest point drop in stock market history, the Democrats will be forced to find a more free market solution to this problem which hopefully includes lowering capital gains and business taxes. It’s time for McCain to lead while Obama continues to watch from the sidelines.
Just the mere fact that John McCain has suspended his campaign to work on the solution has the Dems all in a panic. This is why everybody loves McCain. He truly always puts his country ahead of his aspirations (think Iraqi Surge) and it just so happens to be a politically savvy move at the same time. He very cleverly boxed in Obama who had no choice but to say all this multi-tasking nonsense which makes it look like he doesn’t find this crisis to be as important as his campaign. I am quite sure the American people prefer action over talk. If the negotiation goes past the debate and McCain doesn’t show up, Obama looks really bad for not doing the same thing and the Dems cannot let this happen. After all the debate is on foreign policy, not the economy. The Dems are probably very likely to concede to many Republican demands. I understand the need for an immediate injection of cash into the economy, but I don’t see why we need to fund ALL illiquid mortgages. It’s a very dangerous precedent. I also really like the GOP idea of using free market methods of injecting cash such as suspending the Cap Gains tax. I would like to see a combination of methods for immediate and long term solution. Perhaps buying $100 billion to start with plus a suspension of Cap Gains and see what effect that has. We can always purchase more later if that is really the only solution. I really hope McCain is concentrating on the regulations that will prevent this from happening again.
I really hope McCain goes after Obama on the economy from here on. All of Obama’s policies for raising taxes on the rich including raising the cap gains tax would certainly be detrimental to an economy in desperate need of cash.
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