No Good Guy Awards For This.

Well, there they go again. The Chinese tried to purchase some extremely hard metal called maraging steel from American companies. This stuff is used almost exclusively for the production of nuclear materials. Like for making nuclear bombs. You know, like  B O O M ! But the characters who were trying to buy this stuff, claimed it was to make playground equipment. What they didn't say is that they were buying it for Iran. And if you make a bet that Iran wanted it for it's nuclear weapons industry, I'm pretty sure you'll win the bet. Now China claims they're helping to impose sanctions on Iran, in fact they're buying less oil from Iran. But that's because they can buy oil just as cheap elsewhere and it makes them look good. But they still have profiteers in China working hard to get around those sanctions. Next you hear lots of folks saying that China is a friend and a great marketplace for our exports. And that's true. They're happy to get our exports. Exports like jobs, technology, entire industries, critical supplies of products they can't make. All of those kinds of exports they want from us. In return, they are even more happy to send us defective, contaminated cheap junk. Which for some reason we Americans just can't get enough of. We even buy our Olympic uniforms from them. I suppose that's fitting. Why shouldn't we show respect for the country that will wind up owning us one of these days. Now you may gather that I'm not a fan of China from this entry. But when you look at the
American companies that rush to China to build their factories and the technology they're willing to hand over for the privilege of sending their companies over there, you just might find room to agree.

Who Do You Americans Think You Are?

Who ever said that banks are bad actors. Some banks are very bad actors. Take Standard Chartered Bank of England. Their New York branch has been running Iranian money through New York for years. Money laundering can be very lucrative if you don't get caught. Now that they seem to have been just that. Caught, I mean, the response from the bank is, "Who are you telling us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians." Well,. to answer that, I'd say "We are America, if you want to do business in America, that's who." That's because if you want to do business in America, you have to play by our rules. Actually, they're not alone in this business of flouting U.S. sanctions rules. Some of the other actors are Lloyds, UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays and some others. It seems to be the case that the bigger the bank, the bigger the misdeeds. Although, I'm sure that some small banks do their share of bad deeds. It just seems like people who roll up their sleeves and pick up a tool and put in a hard day at work have little opportunity to cheat and do harm. They may cheat or they may do harm, but it's difficult to do both. But if they roll up their sleeves and do nothing other than try to figure out how to make money from doing nothing, these folks seem to always want to cheat and do harm. I mean that seems to be the approved way of doing business. In the case of Standard Chartered, they had a handbook for employees on how to get around American sanctions rules. A handbook on how to cheat. Ya can't make this stuff up folks. Well, except that they did make up this handbook. They sat down and wrote or typed out the instructions on what to say, what to leave out and how to report fraudulently.And when they get caught, and are about to be shut down, in America, you can bet there's a handbook on how to apologize in a way that lets them off the hook.

Why Our Economy Stinks.

Let me snow you with some stats, Between 1960 and 2000 personal assets in the U.S. averaged 4.6  to 6 times the Gross Domestic Product of America, in 2006 it got to 6.64 times the GDP. In 2008 it dropped to as low as 3.55 times the GDP. In 2009, the Total personal debt was 50.7 Trillion or 3.5 times the GDP. What does all this mean. Big numbers, that's what it means. But what it comes down to is Americans have somewhat less money including savings, home values and everything else and prospects don't look all that great, what with a government bent more on making the other guy look bad than on making us more secure. It's not too hard to understand why confidence is none too high. So if you're sitting in your living room and some politician comes on the air and tells you the only way to save the country is to fire more government workers, stop paying out more on entitlements and cut taxes for job creators, but you know the other guy will not vote for that idea. Do you jump up and run to the store to buy a new washer and dryer or do you call the repairman, after trying to fix the dumb things yourself. Or consider that you're sitting in that same living room and another guy says the only way to save the country is to spend a lot of money on infrastructure and raise the taxes on the rich, but you know the other guy will refuse to vote for that idea. Do you jump up and run out and buy that refrigerator and dishwasher, or not? See? In either case, there's no confidence that anything will be done to help you. Neither party is willing to listen or compromise. Being "in power" is just too important. They'd rather be captain of a Titanic, than sit in the rowboat. Next to you.

What do Jobs Reports Mean?

So the latest jobs report came out with 183,000 new hires, somewhat above the 110,000 to 125,000 needed to stay even with population growth. But the unemployed rate went up from 8.2% to 8.3%. Now there's a head scratcher. Here's another one. The number of private sector jobs is even higher, but government layoffs cut the total back to the 183,000. It's sometimes hard to understand, made even more so by competing ideological views of the numbers.But if private sector hires seems to be on a very slow rise, but rise none the less, what's needed to jump start the process of recovery? Many say a government stimulus in infrastructure is needed. Many say we can't do that because of the tremendous debt.  But then they've been saying that for some considerable time. Ya know what? Such a stimulus would dramatically increase the debt. No getting around that. But the idea is that with increased employment comes increased tax revenue and a lesser burden on entitlements that, combined, would begin to pay down that debt. Still, it would mean taking a gamble that to a conservative mind is no sure bet. On the other hand, to a progressive mind, this bet seems to be the only game in town. The reason being that by shrinking government and cutting taxes as the only means of stimulating the economy, it leaves more unemployed which tends to shrink demand for goods and services so much so, that business is leery of hiring any new employees and in fact may cause layoffs. What it comes down to is two choices: Take a chance or trust to chance.

The Chamber of Commerce Hates Cyber Security.

Cyber Security. Boy there's a word you didn't hear about back when JFK or the Reagon, or even Bill Clinton was in office. But they say that a cyber attack could screw up our water supply or electric supply or our defense. So I have to say that it must be important. That's why representatives of this and the previous administrations have lobbied congress to pass into law a bill that will help protect our country from such an attack. And to our great good luck, congress agrees on it's importance. That's why the Senate just failed to pass such a bill because of a filibuster. The bill would have caused some sharing of information between government and private sector industry. Now in spite of the fact that we need such protection, the Senate couldn't get the 60 votes necessary to end the filibuster. So on the same side we have the government, past and present, pushing for the bill. Who in the world would be against it? It seems that the Chamber of Commerce is against it. They claim it might cost corporations too much money to provide such protections to water supplies and electric service. I wonder how much it would cost them if there were to be a cyber attack? I'll bet the answer is that it wouldn't cost them a dime. That's because they'd come running to to government to rebuild those systems at taxpayer expense, with a little something extra thrown in for the company. But think about it. These companies the Chamber is trying to protect are considered public utilities. They are guaranteed a fixed profit. Why does the Chamber of Commerce care when the taxpayers pay for it, now or later? Let the people decide.

Ain't Being A Super PAC Great?

Well guess what? The IRS has decided that maybe they should look into the allegations that so called Social Welfare Nonprofits under the 501(C)(4) section of the tax code aren't actually social welfare advocates after all. The IRS thinks that maybe those outfits, like American Crossroads, run by Carl Rove and all the other Super PACs are just fronts for political attack ads by partisan political activists who are able to raise millions of dollars secretly. What are the chances? See, by forming a 501(C)(4) nonprofit corporation, you don't have to pay any taxes on that money because you're supposed to spend the money on social welfare issues. So the question the IRS has, is do they spend that money on those social issues or on attack ads against a political candidate? What are the chances? So, as I said earlier, the IRS has decided it might look into the problem, if there is one. If there is one? Do these folks at the IRS ever turn on their TVs? But at least they've decided to look into it. Exactly what does that mean? What it means is that about three or four years from now, when the IRS finds that these 501(C)(4)s have been naughty, and decides to fine them, the American Crossroads corporations of America will have spent all the money, gone out of business and found a new loophole to take advantage of, in order to continue their attacks. Which means the IRS won't be able to collect a dime and since it was a corporation, the executives of those corporations will be exempt from any charges against the corporation. Remember, corporations are people too. And other people can't be held responsible for their evil-doings. Either that or the Carl Rove's of America will explain that they didn't know this sort of thing was happening on their watch. And they'll apologize. Do ya love it yet?

Just What Is Tax Policy

I don't generally go this far, but I just finished reading an article in the Washington Post that talked about Mitt Romney's proposed tax plan. Now to be honest, I guess I missed that. But this article refers to a study of that plan by two groups of researchers. The Brookings Institute and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Based on their findings, it would reduce tax collections by $360 billion per year. To make that up you can kiss good bye to such tax breaks as "mortgage interest, employer provided health-care insurance, education, medical expenses, state and local taxes and child care." But even bigger news than that is the tax savings of $87,000 for the top 5% and an increase of $500 per year in taxes for the bottom 95%. These aren't my numbers. The Brookings Institute and Tax Policy Center are the ones that came up with these figures. So, if Mr. Romney gets elected president, and unless you fit into that 5% group that will get, on average, $87,000, you can expect to pay an extra $500. Now to someone like Mr. Romney, $500 is a small price to pay so that the richest 5% can get an extra savings of $87,000. Also a small amount to someone like Mr. Romney. Now I'm not telling anyone how to vote. If you're a 5% person, you might feel Mr Romney is onto something very helpful and may wish to vote for him. On the other hand if you're looking at paying out an extra $500 in taxes, you may disagree with this plan he's come up with. Or you may even feel that the richest 5% are desperately in need of that extra $87,000 and are willing to help pay for it. If so, you might wish to vote for Mr Romney. Otherwise, you might want to think again about who you want to vote for. I'm just saying.