Tax Experts I Want To Meet

 

I have been watching, with some interest, the way some people view the tax situation in the U.S. and how to deal with it.

I want to meet the fiscal financial experts the Republicans are using for advice! If they can do for me what they tell the GOP they can do for the government, I want in!

I am very interested to know how you reduce the income of the government by keeping taxes low for the very wealthy, such as Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, Dick Cheney, and a very select few others, and still find the money to pay off the national deficit.Very interested indeed if those same tax specialists can also show how this can be done with no tax increase on anyone else too. Totally amazing!

To put this is simpler terms, I will use an ordinary person.

Jack is paid $1000 per month, his taxes are, say, $200, so his take-home pay is $800. Now, the GOP have found a way to pay Jack less, $950, and take less tax, $180, and somehow Jack is supposed to be able to pay his debt bill of $1000 without any problem. I want in! Earn less, pay less tax, and pay off your long-term debt with more money! Yeah! Introduce me to those specialists any place, any time!

So, the GOP want all this hinged on tax breaks for the wealthy, and those hinges are things like giving the people who RAN to a disaster called 9/11, risked THEIR lives, and now face some very nasty health problems, plus, the people who lost all those jobs when the economy went downhill faster than any Olympic skier will have to wait until the rich get a tax break. Those are enormously expensive and very nasty hinges! The unemployed will find their payments held hostage to Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, Dick Cheney, and all those CEO’s of banks, corporations and other wealthy patrons.

Now, one point here, those very wealthy people do have tax specialists, so the tax write-offs, the means to pay less every year for each dollar of income is much less than I pay. Yes, they already have means to pay less, even if they would be paying the tax without the breaks. I have one family member who makes around 7 times what a senior in my family makes, and the senior is paying her taxes quarterly, while the other member is paying close to zero because of the write-offs. This is common as the grass on the prairies.

The reasoning is making me wonder where I managed to miss something. UNLESS the wealthy get a temporary or even permanent tax break, then those who are literally suffering cannot get anything to help them out.

As for the taxes themselves, the math here is very, VERY interesting.

The country is like any household, it needs money to pay bills. So, the country collects taxes to do that. What I see the GOP advice saying is this. Reduce the income of the government (the national household), make sure the wealthy, plus make sure seniors who need the money, people who are unemployed with children at home, and all those young men and women just out of college or university who have tuition bills wait until the income to the government is reduced. Now, I have lived a while, so I know that when my income gets reduced, I cannot pay bills that are on the increase.

Apparently the GOP have found a way to do just that! Reduce the taxes, which in turn reduces the income, and somehow pay off the deficit bills which are rising. Yes! I want to meet those people who have figure out how to do that! You betcha!

Obama, Slam Those Salaries, Now!

I knew at least two months ago that the CEO’s and other fat cat exec’s would find a way to circumvent the ceiling on their bonuses, their income, and get the money.  Quelle Surprise!

They made over 100 of the upper echelon in one company “partners” to get around this,in others,  they just thumbed their noses at the taxpayer, the government and took the money anyway.

I have yet to see anything to get those damned Credit Default Swaps under control, and with the serious lack of legal recourse, the fat cats are eating out on the taxpayers of the entire world. Remember, most of the banks do have international branches or connections.

President Obama, put those ceilings into law, harsh penalties if they violate, and make damn sure they do give you full disclosure on every damn cent of taxpayer monies they are spending. No excuses, no hiding, nadda.

If necessary, put a full investigation using every federal agency, including the IRS, the FBI, and the Wall Street agencies. Stop this abuse of trust now.

As for our own government here, there is an equally apalling lack of investigation, oversight, accounting, so I can gather the same is happening in Japan, Korea, the U.K., Belgium, Germany, and virtually every country tied to this disastrous mess.

Here is where diplomacy comes in, there MUST be an international cooperation, an international accounting, and definitely an international effort to kick these guys where, obviously, they need it, in the wallet.

Damn this is a mess!

Vancouver Woman Burns To Death, She Was One of Thousands of Homeless

I am so saddened by the needless death of a human being when it was totally preventable. The woman was outside, the temperature was at least -10 C. or about 15 F with a wind blowing. She just wanted to find some way to keep warm under her meager belongings, and asked for a candle. Instead of finding an alternative to an open flame,  people told her “No, you cannot have a candle, and I will not give you any matches either.”

Somehow, that woman did find or get a candle, then borrowed a lighter, lit the candle and tried to sleep.  She was huddled under her grocery cart, with cardboard and other covering over that, and yes, the candle caught the material on fire, the woman burned to death.

One time when someone may have used some brains, maybe just gone out of their way to find her some way of getting some flameless heat, and that woman would be here today. But, no, people won’t go that extra step, even the people who worked for the local police. Yes, the police did TELL her to get to a shelter, but unless you know someone who has experienced the local homeless shelters or seen photographs of people sleeping on wooden benches and matresses that even gymnasts would avoid, as well as hearing about the theft and mentally ill people crying out all night because they have not had medication, you too would tell the homeless to get to one of these hellish places.

Some of the local agencies try their hardest to give some semblance of decency and respect to the shelters, some of the places are clean and afford a mimal amount of privacy, but the carts are the lifeline, the possessions, the entire storage for any food, socks, and other goods these people have, and the shelters refuse to allow the carts inside the buildings, and there is no means to securely store the carts anywhere.

Burning to death is a very harsh sentence for anyone, but when it comes from the very basic need for warmth on a very cold, humid night, it becomes tragic. Someone saw this, went in to call the local emergency and they were basically given a cold shrug, the same cold shrug that most of those living on the streets where millionaires walk during the day. Yes, the woman burned to death on a corner where the condos sell for over half a million dollars, there are boutiques and designer shops nearby.

This will just be a passing note, not even worthy of concern to our governmental agencies here, mostly because they figure the poor, those who are so impoverished that they become sub-human, non-existent in any monetary or political power, that this type of death can and will be dismissed.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are getting billions, the city is putting millions into window dressing, the province is pumping out ads that call this place, “The best place on earth”. There are millionaires here that will  lobby the government to reduce the purchase taxes on high cost property, yet every person who has volunteered for charity knows very well, they give much less than the poorest. Why? Because they all just do not give a damn, and the impoverished do not have monetary or political power, and certainly don’t have lobbyists working for them.

I guess the ugly truth is that the government will ignore this death, maybe count the money they might save now, and just carry on.  That is why British Columbia is nicknamed “Bring Cash”, because if you don’t have it, you will not survive here.

If anyone does give a thought to those who live on the streets, in Vancouver the agency that helps out these citizens is:

• Blankets
• Bus tickets
• Winter coats
• Long-sleeved shirts and thermal underwear
• Wool socks
• Sleeping bags
• Tarps (preferably small)
• Hygiene items (combs, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, nail clippers, etc)
• Boots

Donations can be made to Gather and Give, a non-profit charity. It is open Tuesday-Saturday, and is located at 105-418 East Kent Avenue South — just east of Main and south of Southwest Marine Drive. Or visit their website: www.gatherandgive.org.

Tax Money, Whose Is It?

Town council, city council, state, province, federal, even tax for schools and roads, all depend on someone having to pay up. Lately I have noticed a laissez-faire attitude toward the spending, the use of those tax dollars, as if the supply will always be endless and plentiful. Bad attitude!

Whose dollars are those? Whose pounds, yens, pesos, are those? Often they come from the pockets of the poor, the fastest growing segment of most societies. This means children are often eating poorly, going without new shoes, clothing, so the taxes can be paid. Those taxes are coming from families with single parents working part-time, paying for daycare, rent and all those other daily expenses. Tax dollars come from the people who work in minimum-wage stores with no health plan. Tax dollars come from the small shops who make or sell things. Tax dollars come from welfare payments, retirement income, the small trust funds of children who have lost a grandparent. Tax dollars are seldom gained from those who live in the high-income brackets, because there are write-offs, tax deductions for stock losses, and other means to avoid paying taxes. For every 100 tax dollars, less than half of 1 % is from those who make the most.

Poverty bashing has been a growing game, with those who are forced to live on food stamps, unemployment payments, and welfare the people targeted for derision, scorn.  “Get a job!” “Come on, get off your butt and get out there, earn your own way!” “Stand on your own two feet, I am tired of you sitting there and collecting money, tax money, from my hard earnings!” Take a look at almost every industrialized country statistics and you will find a very ugly trend. Poverty is growing. One in ten children now live in poverty in countries that have huge wealth, why? Wages for single parents are usually low, college, university, even health care courses are all well out of the range for any children of single parents. Costs have risen consistently at all those higher education sites, putting the squeeze on money. How could any of those children even consider getting out of the poverty black hole? Food banks are a common sight now, when once, food banks were only seen in cities with huge populations.

This is where Barack Obama had it right, START AT THE BOTTOM! The real bottom. The middle class has virtually disappeared because of the huge gap between those earning the high wages and income and the lower. The middle class is quickly becoming part of the poverty class, the lowest rung on the ladder.

When the 3 auto makers showed up in Washington, for example, there was a severe public relations gaff they made. People were aghast that those CEO’s showed up via private jets to ask for the tax money. Hmm not a good plan, guys! This showed a complete lack of understanding and even comprehension about tax funds, where the money comes from.

This current shakeup is, in a way, ironic. Those who “invested” in CDS, who played funny-money with others hard-earned money, have lost a huge chunk of their own income from the stock market collapse, the losses in the real-estate speculations, the property bought as “investment” for rental. So, no longer are those people walking around looking like they “own” the world. But, those people are the very ones who distained the ordinary working person, the money and taxes from the growing poverty class, and spent like a lottery winner. CRUNCH!  Now maybe some people will realize that every person who is going hungry, who lives in misery, is directly connected to all of us, and in ways we don’t see, we are the ones who are hungry and miserable too.

The bottom line here is respect. We need to relearn respect for ourselves, to do what we know as well as we can. We need to have those who want to have our tax money learn to respect the work required.  Maybe, just maybe, we can then learn to respect those who live with the hardest struggles, those who have been scorned and derided, the Vietnam veteran, the father, the mom, the sister, the son or daughter who live on the cold streets.  Yes, they deserve respect too.

Most of all, we all need to respect our own lives, to realize that we do all have unique abilities, skills, and underneath, we all are sacred, no matter what religion or belief system we use. We also have to respect our world, making sure that we don’t create such a mess that animals starve or get sick and die from poisons we add to the world.

Every being alive looks for a better future, wants to create a better world, and every one of us is capable of doing that. What the definition of “better” is, is where we have to put respect, honour and care into choosing what we do.

Child and Family Poverty Growing in Canada

Little Change For 20 Years in Poverty Rates

Welsh Children and Families living in poverty

National Center on Child Poverty, Letting Poverty Remain Costs All Of Us

State by State Cost Of Child Poverty in the U.S.

As long as we all believe that we MUST be compared to others, we all lose perspective. Poverty WILL grow now, with job losses, houses foreclosed, debts rising, and support systems being slashed.

Tax the School Property, then Give 50% to Business?

It seems the plan here is to cut taxes for the wealthy and take 50% of the taxes on school property and give that away to business! Stupid idea! It will impoverish the schools, already underfunded, and do nothing to make our kids learn or be safer in crumbling buildings, teachers so over-stressed the good ones quit, and leave the money in the hands of people who are running businesses?

If this is passed here, I am going to be very very pissed off! Schools are already dealing with huge class sizes, violence from dealing with kids who need access to counselling and programs after school, and teachers dealing with a government that has absolutely no concern for families living on third world incomes. Rents are high here, probably the highest in the country, yet there is nothing here for any kind of support for low income earners at all!

As I put in another post, society grows from the bottom up! Apparently the bottom of this society starts at the line of business, not families, not children (find reports on the neglect here by the department dealing with abused and murdered children) or those who have to live in rooming houses infested with cockroaches, drugs and filth.

Does this sound like some place you would want to come to? Well, guess what? The 2010 Winter Olympics will show you homelessness that is growing by 50% each year with our government doing nothing whatsoever. Food banks are being drained faster than they get ANY food, with people coming more and more from working poor families. Sure, come, but know that you will find a place with underpinnings of misery.

Tax cuts are in the announcement, but only for those who have work that is higher paid, nothing for those who need to get a leg up and get onto solid ground. Phooey! Damn Stupid plan!

Other measures outlined in the premier’s 10-point plan include:

• Unlimited deposit insurance for deposits to credit unions in B.C.
• Rebate of 50 per cent on all school property taxes to light and heavy industry.
• Doubling the commission paid to business for collecting the provincial sales tax and hotel room tax.
• Speeding up public investments in capital infrastructure projects.
• Re-evaluating spending priorities and scaling back unbudgeted increases.

Credit Default Swaps and Banking Screwups Killing Economies

60 Minutes on These

I finally got some information on these and now perhaps it is time to make someone aware of how totally unregulated these were and are. The show “60 Minutes” put up one very simplified but complete explanation of what CDS are and how they were used to make some banks and people millions on the backs of mortgages, loans, and other money transactions.

In layman’s terms the CDS is essentially an unregulated insurance policy. It guarantees the performance of a security instrument , e.g., a mortgage. The buyer of the CDS pays the maker a fee or “premium” (think insurance) for protection against a loss. Historically the US Treasury has not classified derivatives as “insurance,” and therefore they trade free of any government regulations. Because of that, the firm selling the CDS is not required to set aside any reserves from the premiums received to insure against possible future loss claims. This obviously makes the sale of the Credit Default Swaps extremely profitable and default loss payments very expensive.

These were made against banks themselves, by banks, and if the Swap moves around, banks may end up with Swaps against themselves as well as having other banks “owning” Swaps against each other!  With no regulation, no means of tracking these, they remain hidden, still able to take down corporations, banks, and virtually everything with a loan on it, including mortgages still being paid today!

Basically the banks, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Citibank, along with virtually every bank in the US, along with a few international banks got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, bringing down a really nasty recession on everyone.

Swaps ARE insurance, but because insurance IS  regulated, the banks and investment houses used the term “Swap” to blatantly circumvent insurance regulations.

On September 23, 2008, Christopher Cox, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, placed the worldwide CDS market at $58 trillion, and stated it was “completely lacking in transparency and completely unregulated.” The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported the notional amount on outstanding credit derivatives from reporting banks to be $16.4 trillion at the end of March 2008. (For reference and perspective, the U.S. GDP for 2007 was $13.8 trillion, while the world’s GDP for 2007 was estimated at $54.3 trillion)

See the problem here? Playing high stakes poker, literally, put the bets beyond the ENTIRE world Gross Domestic Production!

What happened is that the mortgages were turned into “Swaps”, even good mortgages, the resold over and over again, until the hidden market was well over the actual value of the entire world GDP. What is truly scary is that there is absolutely no way of knowing EXACTLY how much of this toxic paper is out there, or the true value of any of it, BECAUSE it is a hidden, secret market.

Why am I reiterating this now? Well, those very “instruments” are now being put on the market this week, and there are still no regulations on creating more right as I am posting this!

“It is an insurance contract, but they’ve been very careful not to call it that because if it were insurance, it would be regulated. So they use a magic substitute word called a ‘swap,’ which by virtue of federal law is deregulated,” according to Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and a former director of trading and markets for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  The deregulation of the swaps market is thanks to provisions in The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Who was President and Secretary in the US at this time??

One large difference between credit default swaps and insurance, is you do not need to own the bond or instrument being insured in order to obtain insurance on it. If the bond fails, then, theoretically, you get paid, possibly along with many others. Yet the “insurer” of the bond is not regulated and the transaction is beyond federal or state regulation. This allow speculators to make money by purchasing insurance on a company’s bonds and then shorting the stock of the company in great quantity and getting a payoff that exceeds their risk of shorting if the price of the company’s stock increases. The fact that you need not be a party to owning the bond also explains why the total value of credit default swaps is so high, indeed higher than the total value of the bonds issued.

Translation of bafflegab to ordinary language? You and I do NOT even have to put any money or have a stake in this to be paid off! Speculators all cashed in here!

AIG sold them, bought them, moved and split them, and some banks are still making, moving, splitting them right now.

Until the banks can declare openly what they have in CDS, what they risk, and where their money is being invested in, this will be open season on the government funds, central banks all over the world, and I have yet to see any demands on ANY banks to disclose their swaps.

Obviously this has yet to come out with any transparency, any real idea of what kind of real trouble we are all in, all because of some sneaky, coniving, greedy banks, investment houses, speculators, and the government officials who KNEW these were out there and did absolutely nothing.

Going on down the road

The bill is passed, now what?

Business owners, for some reason, think they can run their businesses on credit alone. This crisis may well teach a lot of people they cannot run on credit, cannot use credit to keep the wheels on the car, literally or not. Business owners, even the larger ones, need to revise their plans to ensure they have cash on hand, and keep a healthy balance in the company funds, especially if you honestly intend to pay your employees.

Same goes for those who thought the “streets paved with gold” were not going to turn into brass. The everyday person now understands how easily over-use of credit can cause some spectacular results. The lessons of wall street really don’t differ that much from the rest of us. Do your homework, check out the places you want to put your trust in, your investments, and yes, it means you have to understand what risky investments are, if only to avoid them.

The world economy may well stall out. Hopefully the changes in the bill just passed through the congress and senate will lead to some smarter moves in the treasury, the whole legislative process, and maybe, just maybe, Paulson and the others who apparently were not capable of taking on the lobby groups will find they must work for the taxpayer instead.

Individuals all over the world, myself included, have come to understand that it takes very little to tip the whole financial basket into the sewer, and some will find it tough to climb out again. I have put money away, and I fully intend to keep doing that.

Money specialists and credit advisers have told people for years to put away at LEAST 3 full months of expenses. I know I didn’t, but I am damn sure going to do that now. It may take out spending money on treats, wanting a new computer, maybe postponing some other purchases, but I will do that.

Bonds are now a good investment, so if you have money you do want to earn interest on, put your money there, especially if you have children, a mortgage. Pay off what you can, as I am going to. I want to be able to be as debt free as is humanly possible. It may cause a slowing of the retail markets, but at this point in time, unless I am healthy financially, I am not going shopping. Sorry.

The toxic sludge that is now going to the government I definitely hope (because there is nothing I can do otherwise) will turn into taxes returned, but I am not going to count on it. Call me sceptical.

Regardless, this may be the right time to put aside money, to not fall for some of the sales pitches from mortgage brokers, not to be so trusting when it comes to money. I was, perhaps, lucky, but there will always be someone out there who will twist facts, lie, and connive, so I am putting myself on notice to do my work, research, and find out what they are talking about.

If they come calling, now I will tell them, “Phooey!” take your scams, your lies and take a long, long walk on a very short pier.

After going around the world with news items, blogs, etc. I am confounded. Does anyone in the US save money for their own use? Businesses want credit to just cover daily expenses? To me, borrowing is something to do when I have most of the money I need, not something to use for buying coffee, or to go to a movie, but apparently I am the odd one here.  We all know the banks did not keep much money in their possession, otherwise they would be on solid ground and healthy. Hmmm how very very odd.