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Oh THOSE Twin Quakes

Well lookie here: Twin Quakes popping all over the place lately.  There were the two around December 26th that affected 95,000 people.  Then we had the twin 7+ quakes  Sunday morning off Indonesia that touched off some small tsunamis in Japan.  Early, it seems, but not wrong on that linguistic set; still pondering all the 'financial earthquake' and 'financial market aftershocks of Madoff which made this all a very confusing stew...  Well, at least that's done...unless we have the BIG follow-on quake today or tomorrow.  That'd be a bummer...

 

And the largest of all bummers would be for these latest twins to be leading into something popping off at Yellowstone and there a,re some who are quite worried about what could be happening (or about to happen) there...noting as one author does, that the caldera is a little late for a major eruption.  About 40,000 years late...and yeah, that would sure fill in the dislocation/isolation/aid from foreign countries linguistic set, and maybe ruin enough food production down wind to bring along those food shortage and rationing descriptors.  But let's not go there...probably just petulant magma flowing. 

 

I hope.

 

Obama's (New & Improved) Free Lunch Deal

Let me see if I have this right:  The US is running a budget deficit right now thanks to (count 'em as we go) the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, miscellaneous wars and low intensity conflicts, bailouts for banksters, foreign aid, and pork for the gang that doesn't think straight inside the Beltway.  So much so they are pimping around a hike in the gas tax.

 

Fine.  That's America, warts and all.

 

Now, along comes the new kid and he puts together a speech which according to one headline will include 600,000 new government employees!  OMG, has anyone but me started to wonder "What are they going to be doing?" Jiminy Christmas - What'll they all do?  Spies to spy on the spies?  Auditors to audit the auditor's auditors? On my tax tab? 

 

Here's the Magic:  At the same time, there's talk that the prez-elect is looking at a $310-billion dollar tax cut.

 

I hope you understand that massive increases in the self-employment tax is not considered an income tax inside the Beltway.  Nope; the screwing of small business is how Big Business keeps small guys small. 

 

Only the rich get to have Boards of Directors and take the hefty part of their pay as stock options which are usually held offshore, which get taxed at a big fat zero when exercised in some tax haven and then the money wired back into the US tax-free.  These are the same folks that bitch about the 'commoners' who put in 70-hours a week, not counting soccer practice, but you knew all that, right?  Like I said, warts and all.

 

I'll start watching the wires for the 'walks on water' reports...

 

Bye-Bye Bill Department

Seems that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is pulling his nomination to be Commerce Secretary since a grand jury is looking at a little commerce related to how some of his key donors picked of lucrative state contracts.

 

Let me see here.  This would make Richardson the first "Soon to be ex Commerce (even before confirmation hearings) appointee"?  I'm sure they'll come up with some other ex-Clintonista for the gig...no worries.

 

The New York Coronation

What Monday would be complete without my usual rant about how America has its elected aristocracy which is why it's only a matter of time before Caroline Kennedy becomes Hillary's replacement.  The NY Times coverage is good.  But, I reckon it's as good as a done deal since what once passed as leadership in America  has evolved in the MSM to brand royalty, star power, and money-raising. Which (besides a state income tax) explains in part why I don't live in New York, huh?  Wonder how many trees have been killed covering this?

 

War Toll

The score is now Palestinians 531, Israel 1 with almost 2,500 Palestinians an d 55 Israelis injured, if I've got the score coming out of Gaza right.

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I don't know about you, but I am personally embarrassed that the US blocked a cease-fire call at the UN. Why the U.S. couldn't act like a genuine world thought (and moral) leader and draft and present its own cease-fire proposal instead of waiting for an Arab-drafted plan (unacceptable!) is just beyond me.  (Unless I follow the money, of course.  Then everything in Washington makes sense.)

 

At least the head of the UN has enough sense to keep pressing for international action to stop the killing.

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Now that Israel has cut Gaza in half, the end high profile warring is likely within a day or three says my best source on these matters. 

 

"Who's your source?" 

 

You really want to know?  OK: It's the price of gold.  Down almost $23  when I looked this morning and that means peace is out there in the wings somewhere and someone's got the nod.  Again, follow the dough and you'll seldom be wrong.  I'm gonna turn you into an economist yet.

 

Speaking of wars: 40 dead in a Shiite mosque bombing in Baghdad.

 

Markets/The Week Ahead

Auto sales and construction spending today (after the market gets its first cup of coffee) then tomorrow we get factory orders.  Along about Thursday  the Fed comes out with the Consumer Debt report - which they persist in calling consumer credit despite my protestations. Then on Friday the unemployment rate comes out.  I look for this one to be a big pop upward.  A sort of 'evening of the books' before the next crowd comes into office. 7% wouldn't surprise me, and maybe 7.1%.  In fact, we're in the position now where paradoxically, a high unemployment rate is good because it will stampede the Beltway Buffoons into spending even more of our money that they don't have.

 

Is this a great country, or what?

 

Be sure and see the new chart this week....

 

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Coping: Cheapskates Meeting

If you've got good bandwidth (and the boss is still hung over) drop by www.thepowerhour.com this morning at 9 AM Central as I'll be talking with Joyce & Dave (no relation to Sam & Dave) about the "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less" ebook...  If you're not able to drop by, at least remember "You can only spend it once" and your budget has two columns: Income and outgo...so if you want to get ahead, cut the outgo faster than the income goes down...

 

Toxic Thought Syndrome?

BBC reporting that detox products to drive them poisons out of your body may not do much more than drive money out of your wallet...

 

Taxing Thought

Oh, here's a goodie of an email:

"George, Looking at my 1040EZ there is indeed a line called Recovery rebate Credit, but it is described as follows:' "You may be able to take this credit only if: You did not get an economic stimulus payment, or Your economic stimulus payment was less than $600($1200 if married filing jointly)"

There are a few more qualifiers, but the bottom line is that it is phrased as an elective rebate (if you didn't take it last year) and is added to your line 7 "Federal Income tax withheld" figure, which in effect decreases the current tax due.

Still, I will need to see if they jacked up the entire tax table by $600, because if they did then i would appear that you are still correct."

Oh gee, imagine that!  Let us know what you find...but remember, they make up for it by screwing the self-employed people over pretty good in the Self-employment Tax section, too.

 

Oh, oh. I can almost here the inbox overflowing with comments now... I just keep coming back to my question which distills down to "If the 'rebate' ain't income, why are they asking about it on and income tax form, huh?"  I mean, if I don't report it as income do I get it again?  LOL, don't worry.  I'm totally honest on my taxes.  It is, after all is said and done, only paper calling itself money and you can't eat, drink, hear, drive, smoke or screw it (directly anyways...).

 

What a crappy thing to wake up thinking about...Monday's are bad enough as they are without adding this to it, eh?

 

Pop Culture

"Lawsuit: Cobb firm illegally distributing Mexican Pepsi in U.S."  "Coca Cola hits back over Fanta high pesticide level claims" (UK story about British pop tested in Spain...).

 

Coke Times Square billboard goes 'green' and in Flint Michigan, Coke just goes away.

 

All Purpose Box Department

We keep moving closer and closer to the ultimate 'all purpose" box in the living room.  Latest move is LG Electronics adding a direct internet surfing option to a like of its HDTV's. 

 

Of course you can get the same thing with a high end PC, with HDMI card and such, but this comes at the problem without the OS  being in view, it seems. 

 

Don't know if there will be a keyboard, but if there is, seems like email and www.docs.google.com could turn TV watching into work... hmmm...

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Send snip and save items to george@ure.net

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Around The Ranch:  Fish Tales

Congrats go out to my commodity broker JB Slear at www.fortwealth.com who, on his 48th birthday yesterday, broke a 5-year losing streak at the dumb end of a fishing pole and caught himself a couple of trout near his home in Arizona.  Offsetting the joy? Weather at the time was a mix of rain and snow.

 

But this reminds me to pass on one of Pappy's old fire house sayings:  "You can't generally catch fish in comfort." 

 

I won't bore you with a lot of old fire house sayings but the one about fishing seemed right on point.  I'll save the others for another time   ("Any worthwhile home remodeling or car repair project involves bleeding..." and so on...)

 

Peoplenomics.com 

The Crash Handbook Part 2:  What Nobody Wants To Talk About

Denial is powerful stuff, so our next task is to blast through some common misconceptions about how closely we are rhyming with events of the (First) Depression and other economic watershed events.  I refer to the study of cycles - the periodic waxing and waning of human events that may be driven by, or causative of change.  It's the topic "Nobody wants to talk about" in mainstream academics.  Using cycle studies, we might speculate about the date a coming World War. Or,  we may be able to see some repetition in patterns of malinvestment by 'common folks' in stocks and bonds over innovation cycles.  It all adds up to a viable alternative to "pure market dynamics" as those focused hypnotically on quantitative analysis would otherwise have policymakers believe. Invention and innovation, not the application of formulaic obscura, is what creates your future. Be warned that the trance of formulas and symbols is not about your prosperity....

 

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"Live on $10,000" Updated

What?  You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year -- or less"?  Suit yourself.  We're all going to live it shortly, anyway.  I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped.  But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:

 

 

 

Yep - still possible.  I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them.  The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings...  Click here for the page with more details on it.

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