patrick.net

WALL STREET, Nov.8 (CashNews) — A new financial system was unveiled today at a meeting of the world’s financial superpowers. Said Mr. Warbucks, head of the committee, “We plan to fight the erosion of the middle class via a combination of policies called Keep You Right Where You Are, with an underlying strategy of Lowered Expectations.” Skeptics, bloggers and protesters vehemently objected to the new plan, calling it a way to lock in the status quo and prevent class advancement within developed nations. The German Chancellor was quoted as saying, “Ja, socia1ism’s not so bat, you big American beh-bies! Zhis is fer der best, mine proletariat!”

TOB says: Perma, check out ‘hyperlink’ technology, its the next big thing.

Whoa, crazy. You fringe bloggers will try anything, won't ya! :o

Seriously Permarenter, it would be nice if you posted just the first few sentences and then a link to the rest. I come here to read the discussion threads, not entire C&P articles lifted from other sites.

I don't like Sarkozy any more. He is nothing but a populist.

But times have changed, he said, and now the euro and other currencies have a place in world financial exchanges, a new reality that he said should be reflected in the rules.

Yes, times have changed and Europe will go down the drains.

Mr Sarkozy, where is the Kärcher you promised?

I like the idea of taxing the dead. They never complain.

Still interested in Henry George's idea of a single tax on land too. It's obviously very fair, public, inescapable, and has the nice benefit of driving down land prices too.

If you keep all your wealth in cash rather than land, fine. You pay no tax. But try to use it -- everyone in society will have to charge you because they themselves had to pay the land tax.

Though then there is the problem of cheap food imports putting farmers out of business.

The only real new financial system will one where the central banks/bank cartels are dismantled and the markets become free again.

That will not happen. If anything, most of the Western world will become more socialized, thereby leading to the ruin of their economies.

Any emerging country that has the brains to take advantage of this and make their system more free will become more prosperous. I don't know that any of them will though.

I do not mind if land tax is charged according to the rental equivalent value. It is a type of consumption tax.

Though then there is the problem of cheap food imports putting farmers out of business.

We better conquer that foreign land so that everybody in the world pays tax to Uncle Sam. LOL! :lol:

The only real new financial system will one where the central banks/bank cartels are dismantled and the markets become free again.

Amen, brother!

That will not happen. If anything, most of the Western world will become more socialized, thereby leading to the ruin of their economies.

Yep.

Any emerging country that has the brains to take advantage of this and make their system more free will become more prosperous. I don’t know that any of them will though.

We may have to wait 200 years for that to happen. For now, we have a new dictator. It is called the tyranny of the majority!

Even Switzerland and Hong Kong are slowly being poisoned by socia!ism.

but the majority of Americans are White, free market, WASPs.

... and Boomers. "Hmm, let's tax those Gen-X slackers for our retirements."

Result: high income tax rate + socialized male potency drugs

Peter, when has Switzerland ever not been socia1ist in the modern age?

Half of their economy is based on a great scam. You put money in Swiss banks, out of the reach of your own oppressive government tax policies, and in exchange their government skims off a small percent of your wealth each year. In exchange, the Swiss bankers get discounted access to massive amounts of capital.

Their game will be slowly busted by Singapore. Lichtenstein and the Cayman Islands perform the same legal money laundering function, but I don't think anybody really believes that their governments could restore your capital in the event of a banking meltdown. People can reasonably have faith in recovery in Zurich (barring a massive meltdown even bigger than this one), and now in Singapore because they have stockpiled so many U.S. Treasuries and Euro-denominated assets.

Money laundering is a symptom of excessive government regulations.

TOB: Americans might predominantly be WASPs, but most of them couldn't define "free market" without Wikipedia. J6P is a capitalist during a bull market; J6P is a socia1ist in a bear market. It's a corollary to "There are no athiests in foxholes."

Switzerland is still safer until all warring dictators move their money away. ;)

J6P is a capitalist during a bull market; J6P is a socia1ist in a bear market.

Hence socialized Put options. (e.g. The Greenspan Put)

Money laundering is a symptom of people acting in their own best interests, which is not always to the ultimate gain of society. It's also a result of imbalances between various countries, and the method of smaller countries who try to exploit their relative size by becoming parasites.

The Greenspan Put... and where exactly has that gotten us? Just another get rich quick scheme.

America needs to return to its fundamental roots. This is a nation where anyone can become rich with ingenuity and hard work. Our new idols seem to be hedge fund managers who made easy money. It appeals to people a lot more than the experiences of guys like Steve Jobs, who lived like a bum on somebody's dorm room floor until he spent the rest of his life building a company. The hedge fund sort of fast wealth contributes absolutely nothing to society.

Maybe we should tax the living hell out of stock gains and then massively cut corporate taxes. We want our smartest citizens to build productive businesses that bring employment and an improved standard of living to the nation. That's why capitalism benefits a republic. It would also point J6P away from trying to "double down" on risky stocks. Once the "little guy" starts playing in games beyond his control, the masses will eventually start lobbying the government for all sorts of "guarantees" about the stock market. Look at the way the Fed cut interest rates---how many times was it to boost the stock market and reverse losses? Is that sort of manipulation really capitalist? It's just a sign that J6P is trying to manipulate a game that he doesn't even remotely understand, and probably should not be playing in. Heck, most people don't even vote their proxies! Is J6P really trying to buy a slice of ownership in a company that's been carefully researched, one in which he wishes to participate, or is J6P just trying to accidentally strike gold by throwing $1000 darts at a ticker tape?

>> Maybe we should tax the living hell out of stock gains and then massively cut corporate taxes.

I support this policy as well as taxing dead people 80%.

The Chinese $600B stimulus plan is only the first stage.

There is a much bigger one coming earlier next year, which they are working on. It is rumored to be over $1T. Reminder, they have a total of $2T USD reserve. Just a side note, they won't be adding that much USD reserve this year because unfortunately we cannot afford to send too much USD that way because our consumers just went on strike.

Now the question is, who is going to buy our $500T new T offerings to plug the deficit hole of next year? Either our Fed just need to go straight to raw printing, or we will have to default...

Oops, I meant $500B, maybe very soon we will be talking about $500T deficits if Ben gets his way

“Hmm, let’s tax those Gen-X slackers for our retirements.”

Hear, hear! :)

Now all you slackers get back to work.

It's not the boomers that are causing the problems: it's members of the so-called "greatest generation" (the boomers' parents) who are the leaches draining this country's reserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/10gm.html?hp

The so-called "greatest generation" raped their own children - the boomers - to fund an unwarranted lavish retirement via high taxes all through the boomers lives.

boo hoo. We have to trade one free health plan with another free health plan. waaaaahhhh.

Try paying $500/month like me.

The so-called “greatest generation” raped their own children - the boomers - to fund an unwarranted lavish retirement via high taxes all through the boomers lives.

See... FDR's fault!

A social safety net is a huge moral hazard. Once people realize that they can't fall below a certain point, they have every incentive to attempt a super-dangerous stunt like betting their entire 401(k) in company stock. America has acquired a lotto mindset---success is attributed more to luck than to hard work.

The problem, of course, is that the safety net is designed to catch a small percentage of the trapeeze artists. If they all bail into the net at the same time, the whole structure will collapse.

How about a law that says if you drew any Social Security, the difference between what you paid in and what got paid out will be deducted from your estate prior to passing it on to your heirs? The system would thus guarantee that the penniless cannot die in the street, but it forces people to use their savings, pensions and retirement accounts to fund their retirement (or else pay it all back anyway).

How's this proposal as part of our new financial system... Confiscate individual retirement funds, 401K, 403B, 457, IRA etc. and put them under the benevolent care of the Social Security Administration.

http://www.carolinajournal.com/articles/display_story.html

This larger issue is freedom. Property rights are critical to the basic freedoms we enjoy in the English-speaking world. We're sliding into a bog called socialism, or enslavement by its real name. The end game is to enslave the population. Property rights and freedom cannot be separated.

I'm in moderation. Was it the word socialism? Not an epithet or offensive sobriquet in my modest comment.

I just saw this note on a HUD foreclosure listing:

HUD WILL PAY UP TO 5% COMMISSION ON ACCEPTED & CLOSED BID. NEW $100 Down payment Incentive is available for Owner Occupants who submit FULL Price Offers on FHA Eligible Properties (utilizing FHA financing). Visit URL above for additional information.

Can I possibly be reading that right? A $100 downpayment?

Or are they just offering an extra $100 if you supply a downpayment? Please be that.

Brand, could you post the link, I'd like to look at it. Maybe I can make some sense of it.

Actually I just found that on Atlanta homes. It seems pretty clear that it is a $100 downpayment. Remember that the FHA loans have closing costs but you may be reading it correctly. It seems on the site I found it has to be a HUD listed home, my link doesn't say anything about it being a full price offer. Evidently different areas may have different guidelines.

http://www.hmbireo.com/view.php?id=140

Just type HUD $100 down payment into a search engine. It seems like it is definitely a real program. In MN, they are offering $500 to agents who get a full-price offer and again the $100 doesn't seem contingent on a full-price offer.

It seems like a conflict of interest to offer a $500 bonus to an agent to get a full price offer. Why would a buyer do that? What would the agent say? "Dude, you need to pay full price so that I can get an extra $500." Or "Hurry, this house is going to go quick, I suggest you write a full price offer."

The lotto mindset does not originate from the belief that one cannot fall below a certain point, but rather that one cannot rise naturally above a certain point.

Any genuine attempt to fairly distribute wealth will include measures to tax the wealth directly, NOT income. Progressive taxation is an attack on becoming rich. Entrepreneurial people in the Silicon Valley, take note!

This is the greatest financial myth of all time.

Progressive taxation supports people *becoming* rich. Otherwise the natural trend is for wealth to become more and more concentrated within the upper echelon of society.

Damn. I was hoping the $100 downpayment thing was some kind of bad dream. But Malcolm is right, here's a link to prove it: http://100dollarhudhomes.com/programinfo.htm

wtf does the government think it's doing by putting yet more underqualified people into fresh foreclosures? All this does is encourage NINJAs to get more creative, because once again you don't have to use a downpayment. The full price clause just artificially props up valuations, and if you're only putting down $100, then why not sign up for the full amount? It's not like the FHA is stringent anyway, thanks to ACORN and others.

Grh. Our tax dollars at work, folks... our tax dollars at work.

For now we will not have a T auction failure. As a perceived safe haven, US desire to buy alone s sufficient.
How long can we do this? As a $14T economy going to a $13T economy looking to deficit finance $1t per year for the next 2+ years. . .
I would say we have 2 years of only a modest rise in the cost of govt borrowing. Then a few years of owwie borrrowing. Then, if things have not improved, we are living in the world of Schiff. Failed auctions and no end of problems.
For now it is kinda an upside down world if you think aout it. We USED to buy stocks and bonds in companies. Now we buy T who then spend the money on, well, stocks and bonds in companies.

Kewp, well said about progressive taxation.

Did y'all notice the latest AIG shenanigans today?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Fed-Treasury-revamp-support-insurer/story.aspx?guid=%7B0C948F5A%2D7E81%2D4349%2DBE47%2D0A3C7253827F%7D

Kewp, it never ceases to amaze me the number of people in this country who believe that the reason they are not rich is that the *government* is keeping them down.

Where is it they get these ideas, is it in the milk in kindergarten or something?