How are we going to pay for all this shit?

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by Wile E Coyote

Biden believes it is never his fault. His spending does not equate inflation, the war in Ukraine did.

that (not my fault) is quite an outlook thats not based on reality.

[lustylad]

The Price of Biden’s Excuses for Inflation Keeps Rising

‘Make no mistake,’ the president said last week, higher costs are ‘largely the fault of Putin.’

By Gerard Baker
March 14, 2022 12:52 pm ET


‘Make no mistake, inflation is largely the fault of Putin.”

Even by the high standards of political mendacity, the attempt by President Biden last week to assign blame for the acceleration of prices that began just over a year ago to a war that began just under three weeks ago is remarkable for its cynicism, its dishonesty and its desperation.

The cynicism is so sweeping that you have to sit back and marvel. How much contempt do they have for the intelligence of Americans to think that there are enough who would believe such a proposition?

In fact we have a good sense of the depth of the disdain the president has for Americans’ understanding of their economic circumstances. In that same speech, to the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference, he bemoaned that all his hard work doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

“The American people just trying to stay above water don’t understand this. You tell them what the American Recovery Act was, and they look at you like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

(He seems to have meant the American Rescue Plan, but the mislabeling proves his own point. If he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, why should they?)

It’s cynical in a much more dismaying way too: as a grotesque effort to enlist an act of brutality by an autocratic aggressor in the service of domestic political expediency. The arts of political message creation may be darker than Vladimir Putin’s soul, but did someone in the White House really watch Ukrainian cities burn and images of wounded pregnant women being ferried from maternity hospitals and think “#Putinpricehike!”?

The dishonesty is as grim as the cynicism. The surge in inflation, which began in November 2020 when the year-over-year increase in the consumer-price index was 1.2%, obviously isn’t all Mr. Biden’s fault. As the economy began to open up after the initial shock of the pandemic, a wave of pent-up demand met a supply constricted by disruption and diminished capacity. The resultant price surge was global.

While this may absolve policy makers of responsibility for the initial rise in inflation, it serves also to highlight their culpability in their failure to respond to it.

Primary responsibility lies with the Federal Reserve, which by its passivity in the last year may have executed the most significant failure of monetary policy in most Americans’ lifetimes.

But the Biden role is not to be diminished. To use a religious taxonomy the president will be familiar with, his administration is guilty of sins of both commission and omission.

The sin of commission was principally that American Rescue Plan that nobody now gives him credit for. Adding a demand boost of $1.9 trillion was a reckless gamble—and the Democrats know it because they were repeatedly told so by some of their most prominent economic thinkers.

But there are other sins of commission—or at least attempted ones. The effort to pass Build Back Better was one. While the measure contained some elements that might eventually have eased some supply constraints, the anticipated shorter-term fiscal impact was enormous, with the real cost of the legislation much higher than the $1.7 trillion claimed. Another error was to respond to labor shortages by making it more remunerative for many workers to stay home with generous unemployment benefits.

The sin of omission is serious too. It is as negligent for a government to watch a rising threat and do nothing about it as to enact measures that harm the economy. But almost every month the inflation rate has been rising, the Democrats have dismissed concerns with a now familiar litany: it was “temporary,” it was a “high class problem,” it was the fault of corporate greed. Now, it’s the war.

Let’s be generous and date the start of the “Putin price hike” to mid-December, when anticipation of trouble in Ukraine began to weigh on energy markets. Since then the price of crude oil has risen by roughly 50%. Prices had already risen in the prior year, also by about 50%. Again, this isn’t all Mr. Biden’s fault. Oil prices hit a low in the early stage of the pandemic on fears of a global depression and have been rising since.

But the Biden administration can’t have it both ways. It can’t pursue rhetorical and regulatory policies that are explicitly designed to make fossil-fuel production scarcer and then say they have nothing to do with any price increase. The U.S. is the largest oil producer in the world, accounting for about a sixth of total production. Markets notice these things.

Cynical, dishonest—and above all desperate. The Democrats know time is rapidly running out. The depletion of their excuses is proceeding much more quickly than the depletion of U.S. energy supplies. Those responsible should pay a political price as punishing as the inflation Americans are enduring.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-e...g-11647275414?

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

... I did recently read a book that might improve one's mood.
https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolut.../dp/1641772301
Very interesting and enjoyable read. The author details the upcoming convergence of a whole panoply of new innovations which promise to create a fresh technology-driven productivity surge. (We sure do need one -- only a period of robust growth over the next decade or so has a snowball's chance of helping us "pay for all this shit.")....

Sounds like a good read, albeit a bit blue sky-ish. But hey, we need some optimism from somewhere, as what we got is a bunch of Malarky from our politico class ATM. I'll try to start a thread on the subject later in the week or next week. That genre is in my wheelhouse. But IRL has me running hard ATM. (gots me my Snidely Whiplash on)

I see the potential for upside, but I see a whole lot of darkside. In fact, we are already seeing some of it. Based on our collective experience and response to the challenges the past two years indicates we are not strong enough to control some of what's coming down the pike, let alone even understanding the impacts of it.

[Texas Contrarian]

Just when you thought Ron Wyden's asset seizure plan had been killed stone dead, once and for all, along comes our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief to stick it into his latest "budget proposal."

But this time, even though they're calling it the "billionaire minimum income tax," the proposal seeks to apply the mark-to-market capital gains tax on everyone whose net worth exceeds $100 million.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-pro...mum-income-tax

And there's this from the excellent Reason Foundation:

https://reason.com/2022/03/29/bidens...m_medium=email

Fortunately, Manchin came out within 24 hours and threw cold water all over this harebrained idea. But if progressives ever win large majorities in both the House and Senate while holding the presidency as well, you can bet the idea will become a central part of their aganda.

And soon enough, the tax on unrealized gains will apply to much less wealthy individuals. In AOC's world, no one needs to unduly fatten up that $500,000 401K or any other type of savings & investment plan. Not while there are hungry children and a "climate emergency." I mean, shouldn't you just be happy with your Social Security check?

You know the old adage:

"First they came for the ...")

(You get the idea.)

.

[lustylad]

Your tax dollars at work... being doled out for Bentleys and Lamborghinis, er, I mean for COVID RELIEF!

https://news.yahoo.com/biggest-fraud...195900725.html

[lustylad]

Why We Are Covid Broke

All Washington knows how to do is spend money—and it can’t even do that well.

By Kimberley A. Strassel
March 31, 2022 1:38 pm ET


Washington dysfunction is so comprehensive, it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start. So there is usefulness in a recent White House missive to Congress—which in a few short pages neatly sums up the dishonesty and malpractice of today’s Beltway.

“Dear Madame Speaker,” begins the March 15 letter, devoted to the topic of Covid poverty. “We are notifying you of the following actions necessitated by the lack of critical funding.” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and White House Covid coordinator Jeffrey Zients explain that unless Congress supplies tens of billions more in taxpayer dollars, the federal government will no longer be able to “secure sufficient booster doses,” will end “the purchase of monoclonal antibody treatments,” will halt “critical testing,” and will scale back “preventive treatments for the immuno-compromised.”

We are, somehow, Covid broke. How? Didn’t Washington, under the cry of “emergency,” spend $6.6 trillion in fiscal 2020 and $6.8 trillion more in 2021? Both years equaled at least 50% more in spending than in 2019—and all for “Covid.” Only a year ago, Democrats waved through a sixth Covid relief bill, President Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—enough money to buy every Covid vaccine, ventilator, and hospital chain on the planet. Only this week, the White House put out a $5.8 trillion 2023 budget proposal. Yet the administration insists that without $22.5 billion in emergency dollars now, we again face Covid apocalypse.

Where did all the money go? Everywhere but to Covid. The Rescue Plan handed $350 billion in “relief” money to the states, and the Associated Press recently described its uses. Some $140 million is going to a high-end hotel in Broward County, Fla. Colorado Springs, Colo., is dumping $6.6 million into golf-course irrigation systems. An Iowa county is using $2 million to purchase a privately owned ski area. Massachusetts is ladling $5 million to cover the debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate.

Crain’s reports that even dollars earmarked for Covid aren’t safe. New York is sitting on funds that were supposed to go to homeowner assistance and small-business recovery but may not be needed as the pandemic wanes. Crain’s notes that “one watchdog raised the notion that the relief money—particularly $12.7 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds—could become a pile of unassigned dollars for the state government to use as it deems necessary.”

And that’s just the legal waste, fraud and abuse. One of Congress’s first Covid-relief bills created a committee of inspectors general to provide oversight of Covid funds. It’s done a good job—even as Congress studiously ignores its findings. The inspector general of the Small Business Administration reported that fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program and other loans was “unheard of—unprecedented.” “In terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these Covid relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it,” he told ABC News in August.

The Labor Department inspector general now estimates that more than $163 billion of $872 billion in Covid unemployment dollars might have been improperly paid, “with a significant portion attributable to fraud.” That’s a 19% improper-payment rate and more than seven times the $22.5 billion the White House recently insisted it needed in emergency additional Covid dollars.

Democratic “moderates” are expressing outrage over this mismanagement, with Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger calling the state boondoggles “outrageous” and “nuts.” Yet the Rescue Plan passed on an entirely partisan vote (including Ms. Spanberger’s), and these Democrats were nowhere to be found when Republicans were trying to limit how the money was spent. Many Democrats even now are resisting Republican demands that additional money come from repurposed, unspent Covid funds.

Not that Republicans have much to brag about. They boycotted the final $1.9 trillion Rescue Plan, but they were partners in crime in the five Covid bills that preceded it. Those bills included hefty checks to households that didn’t need the cash, blue-state bailouts, and giant new infusions to federal government agencies.

Americans are increasingly realizing that Congress is barely capable of anything but spending money—and that only via shadowy back-room deals and last-minute votes. In recent years it’s proved unable to pass policing reform, any trade bills, or desperately needed changes to immigration policy, to name a few failures. But dangle in front of lawmakers a juicy infrastructure blowout, or an omnibus plumped with earmarks, or a payoff to states and the education lobby disguised as a Covid “relief” bill—and they’re all over it.

The mismanagement of Covid funds highlights the absurdity of the White House’s new demand for more, not to mention Mr. Biden’s $5.8 trillion budget. If Republicans can’t make spending discipline central to their midterm message, they risk alienating a voter base that is disgusted with Washington largesse.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kimberl...ud-11648735209

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

It is called the: You will own nothing and be happy -- or else! plan

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Just when you thought Ron Wyden's asset seizure plan had been killed stone dead, once and for all, along comes our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief to stick it into his latest "budget proposal."

But this time, even though they're calling it the "billionaire minimum income tax," the proposal seeks to apply the mark-to-market capital gains tax on everyone whose net worth exceeds $100 million.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-pro...mum-income-tax

And there's this from the excellent Reason Foundation:

https://reason.com/2022/03/29/bidens...m_medium=email

Fortunately, Manchin came out within 24 hours and threw cold water all over this harebrained idea. But if progressives ever win large majorities in both the House and Senate while holding the presidency as well, you can bet the idea will become a central part of their aganda.

And soon enough, the tax on unrealized gains will apply to much less wealthy individuals. In AOC's world, no one needs to unduly fatten up that $500,000 401K or any other type of savings & investment plan. Not while there are hungry children and a "climate emergency." I mean, shouldn't you just be happy with your Social Security check?

You know the old adage:

"First they came for the ...")

(You get the idea.)

.

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Joseph Goebbels

The weak link ATM is the portion I underlined. 'They' cannot hide inflation, political corruption, border invasion and war, but for a brief moment. Well... except to the terminally stupid.

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” — Joseph Goebbels (Ref.)

[WTF]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Your tax dollars at work... being doled out for Bentleys and Lamborghinis, er, I mean for COVID RELIEF!

https://news.yahoo.com/biggest-fraud...195900725.html

You realize this was done under Trump, right?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Just when you thought Ron Wyden's asset seizure plan had been killed stone dead, once and for all, along comes our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief to stick it into his latest "budget proposal."

But this time, even though they're calling it the "billionaire minimum income tax," the proposal seeks to apply the mark-to-market capital gains tax on everyone whose net worth exceeds $100 million.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-pro...mum-income-tax

And there's this from the excellent Reason Foundation:

https://reason.com/2022/03/29/bidens...m_medium=email

Fortunately, Manchin came out within 24 hours and threw cold water all over this harebrained idea. But if progressives ever win large majorities in both the House and Senate while holding the presidency as well, you can bet the idea will become a central part of their aganda.

And soon enough, the tax on unrealized gains will apply to much less wealthy individuals. In AOC's world, no one needs to unduly fatten up that $500,000 401K or any other type of savings & investment plan. Not while there are hungry children and a "climate emergency." I mean, shouldn't you just be happy with your Social Security check?

You know the old adage:

"First they came for the ...")

(You get the idea.)

.

It won't die and it won't be implemented!

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Why We Are Covid Broke...

We have a large over-supply of Cov-idiots.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by WTF

It won't die and it won't be implemented!

I suspect it's more likely than not that you're correct. (At least for the next few years.)

But the political pendulum swings rather wildly these days, as the ephemerality of partisan majorities should be obvious to any sentient individual. Now it looks likely that the Blue Team will lose the House and in all likelihood the Senate in November of this year.

And, unless Democrats can start pulling rabbits out of hats very quickly, probably the presidency in '24. (Especially if Democratic big-money campaign contributors can't manage to get Joey, Kamala, and Hillary the hell out of the way, as they are desperate to do according to a number of people close to the East Hampton/Greenwich hedge fund scene.)

But longer term ...

What happens if the Red Team regains the nation's political control panel, some sort of scary crisis occurs on their watch, and they get landslided out of office in a huge wave election? With a Bernie acolyte in the White House, an AOC-led House, and a Senate with large Dem majorities, you'd better watch out below.

Something close to that happened in 2008 following the onset of the financial crisis.

But then, through sheer incompetence, irresponsibility, and partisan overreach, Obama and his fellow Democrats pissed it away in dramatic fashion, getting shellacked with a 63-seat loss in the House and big losses in states all across the nation.

But even a 2-year run with all the levers of power could give these people a shot at doing a horrific amount of damage.

.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Just when you thought Ron Wyden's asset seizure plan had been killed stone dead, once and for all, along comes our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief to stick it into his latest "budget proposal."

But this time, even though they're calling it the "billionaire minimum income tax," the proposal seeks to apply the mark-to-market capital gains tax on everyone whose net worth exceeds $100 million.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-pro...mum-income-tax

And there's this from the excellent Reason Foundation:

https://reason.com/2022/03/29/bidens...m_medium=email

Fortunately, Manchin came out within 24 hours and threw cold water all over this harebrained idea. But if progressives ever win large majorities in both the House and Senate while holding the presidency as well, you can bet the idea will become a central part of their aganda.

And soon enough, the tax on unrealized gains will apply to much less wealthy individuals. In AOC's world, no one needs to unduly fatten up that $500,000 401K or any other type of savings & investment plan. Not while there are hungry children and a "climate emergency." I mean, shouldn't you just be happy with your Social Security check?

You know the old adage:

"First they came for the ...")

(You get the idea.)

.

Good post. Biden's proposal wasn't as bat shit crazy as what Wyden, Warren and Sanders wanted, in that it wouldn't require people to come up with appraisals of illiquid assets annually. Instead Biden proposed putting an extra tax on top of the normal capital gains tax when the illiquid assets were sold. This would compensate the Mafia, err, sorry, federal government for the time value of money, not getting its cut on asset appreciation every year.

Still how much sense does this make? What happens if the Progressives take control and the value of WTF's position in Enterprise Products plummets to "0"? He's already paid 20% or 23.8% tax on appreciation of the asset. Will the government refund that money, with interest? I highly doubt it.

And how about someone like Elon Musk. You're going to make him sell a chunk of his stock every year to pay taxes on phantom income? That's a job destroyer, as it transfers money from dynamic entrepreneurs to an inefficient and wasteful federal government.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Your tax dollars at work... being doled out for Bentleys and Lamborghinis, er, I mean for COVID RELIEF!

https://news.yahoo.com/biggest-fraud...195900725.html

Originally Posted by lustylad

Why We Are Covid Broke


Where did all the money go? Everywhere but to Covid. The Rescue Plan handed $350 billion in “relief” money to the states, and the Associated Press recently described its uses. Some $140 million is going to a high-end hotel in Broward County, Fla. Colorado Springs, Colo., is dumping $6.6 million into golf-course irrigation systems. An Iowa county is using $2 million to purchase a privately owned ski area. Massachusetts is ladling $5 million to cover the debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate....The inspector general of the Small Business Administration reported that fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program and other loans was “unheard of—unprecedented.” “In terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these Covid relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it,” he told ABC News in August.

The Labor Department inspector general now estimates that more than $163 billion of $872 billion in Covid unemployment dollars might have been improperly paid, “with a significant portion attributable to fraud.”

I don't understand how our friend WTF can be aware of things like this and still want to feed the beast. The power of the purse should be closest to the people. You're not going to see Floridians or Iowans voting to spend their own tax money to buy hotels and ski areas. If we'd raised and spent money at the local and state level for pandemic relief instead of relying on the Feds, we would have seen a lot less fraud.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

Still how much sense does this make? What happens if the Progressives take control and the value of WTF's position in Enterprise Products plummets to "0"? He's already paid 20% or 23.8% tax on appreciation of the asset. Will the government refund that money, with interest? I highly doubt it.

That tax was for folks over a 100 million!!!!

You need to start reading more than the headlines.

I'll tell ya what I do agree with. Tax it upon death. Tax the gain at that time and forget all that other nonsense.