FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Taxpayer’ Category

I have to be wrong eventually with one of these calls, you know…

So if you’re a bank, told to write down $5 billion worth of mortgages (your “share” of the total) and given discretion as to which ones you write down, on which loans do you “write down” the principal?

You write down those on which you hold a second, because it increases the value of the second in actual terms on a dollar-for-dollar basis!

Note that this does not change the balance sheet numbers, since you’re already claiming that these loans are good when they are not.  But it does help to “rescue” your bad paper.  This would be a circle-jerk and of no consequence if the funds for the write-downs were coming from the banks.  But they’re not — they are instead largely coming from Treasury, that is you and I as a taxpayers, via HAMP and HARP.

And who’s going to take it in the ass?

The bad news is that the paper holders will take it in the back door again.  Not so much by defaults, but rather by prepays into a world where the only replacement paper yields half of what they were getting before. Since the major holders in the US of this paper are pension funds and insurance companies, all we’re doing here when you analyze this on a macro-level balance-sheet basis is creating a detonation in pension funding a few years out.  I’ve been talking about that too for a while, but once again nobody wants to hear it, and I’m sure in five or ten years when all these pension funds blow sky high we’ll be told once again “nobody could have seen it coming.”

And now, confirmation….

The banks that service about half the nation’s mortgages on behalf of investors will be able to share losses on their junior loans with bondholders and get credit toward the cash they pledged to spend in the settlement, said an Obama administration official involved in drafting the $25 billion agreement. Second liens would typically be wiped out before senior-mortgage investors take a loss, said Laurie Goodman, managing director at Amherst Securities Group LP in New York.

It’s “a gift to the banks, at investors’ expense,” said Goodman, a member of the Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of Fame. “A proportionate write-down of the first and second represents a reversal of normal lien priority.”

There it is.

Once again….

Incidentally, if you didn’t parse the above completely, let me do it again — it is you who will get the short straw on this.  Your insurance premiums will be going up and your pension funds will be going up too — up in smoke, that is.

Thank President Obama and that little weasel Geithner for this.  This is entirely, 100%, without exception their personal responsibility.

Funny how this is getting scant attention….

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

Their anger, if you remember, including the very-explicit threat to burn the government to the ground — literally — with road flare protests and pelting Parliament with rocks.

Remember this?

It worked.  The people won, and the banksters lost, at least for now.

Banks were closed and reorganized, depositors protected and external creditors told to stuff it.  Despite claims at the time of “dire consequences” they never materialized — oh threats were made, but in the end nobody invaded and nobody did a damn thing about it, because they couldn’t.

As for handcuffs, we might get those too….

Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.

That would be a great thing indeed.

The lesson here is that you don’t have to put up with the banksters and the world will not end if you feed them to the sharks.  Rather, what will happen is that your economy will recover.

We should all make them eat their own cooking, following Iceland’s example.

Did you know that the federal government is giving out free cell phones and free cell phone minutes to welfare recipients?  It may be hard to believe, but it is true.  Right now, there are companies that are running advertisements specifically targeted at low income Americans informing them of the fact that all they have to do is sign up and they can get a free cell phone and hundreds of free cell phone minutes every single month and it will all be paid for by the federal government.  Some have referred to this as “The Obama Phone”, but that is not exactly accurate.  The outrageous federal programs that are paying for this were initiated before Barack Obama entered the White House.  But the fact that welfare recipients have been receiving free cell phones and free cell phone minutes under both the Bush and Obama administrations has been confirmed as being true by Snopes.  All of this is paid for by “the federal Universal Service Fund”.  That is one of those annoying little taxes that you may have noticed on your phone bill.  So what is essentially happening is the federal government is taking money from all of us so that they can provide free cell phone service for welfare recipients every single month.

When some of my readers informed me of this free cell phone scheme, I decided that I better go to the source.  So I went over to the FCC website, and it turns out that there are two federal programs involved.  “Link Up” provides a one-time connection discount on phone service, and it can be applied to the cost of a cell phone.  So this is where the free cell phone comes from.  “Lifeline” provides a monthly discount on telephone service.  So this is where the free cell phone minutes each month come from.  The following is a description of these programs from the FCC website….

What Benefits are Available Under the Lifeline and Link Up Programs?

• Lifeline provides discounts on one basic monthly telephone service (wireline or wireless) for qualified subscribers. These discounts can be up to $10.00 per month, depending on your state. Federal rules prohibit qualifying low-income consumers from receiving more than ONE Lifeline service at the same time. That is, qualifying low-income consumers may receive a Lifeline discount on either a home telephone or wireless telephone service, but may not receive a Lifeline discount on both services at the same time. Lifeline also includes Toll Limitation Service, which enables a telephone subscriber to limit the amount of long distance calls that can be made from a telephone.
• Link Up Up provides qualified subscribers with a one-time discount (up to a maximum of $30) off of the initial installation fee for one traditional, wireline telephone service at the primary residence or the activation fee for one wireless telephone. It also allows subscribers to pay the remaining amount they owe on a deferred schedule, interest-free. Federal rules prohibit qualifying low-income consumers from receiving more than ONE Link Up discount at a primary residence. That is, qualifying low-income consumers may receive a Link Up discount on installation or activation charges associated with either a home telephone or wireless telephone service.

Apparently these programs are becoming quite popular.

You can find a company called Safelink Wireless offering welfare recipients a free cell phone and 250 free cell phone minutes a month right here.

You can find a company called Assurance Wireless offering welfare recipients a program that is virtually identical right here.

This is absolutely outrageous, and it is yet another sign that dependence on the government is totally out of control.

Not that assisting the poor is bad.  Of course we always want to help those that cannot help themselves.  We never want to see anyone go without daily food or sleep in the streets.

But providing the poor with the basics of life is much different from providing them with luxuries such as cell phones.

In some areas of the country, the poor can also receive nearly free Internet service every single month.

Just check out the following example from the Houston Chronicle….

When Comcast acquired NBC Universal earlier this year, an FCC-mandated requirement was that the cable giant offer cheap Internet access to low-income households. Comcast is making good on the mandate through a new program called Internet Essentials.

Families who qualify will be able to sign up for 1.5-Mbps Internet access – the same download speed as AT&T’s basic DSL service – for just $9.95 a month. Customers may also be eligible for a computer that costs just $150 and free Internet training.

Also, a new bill has been introduced in Congress that would give “eligible” households money to help pay for gasoline….

Low-Income Gasoline Assistance Program Act – Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to states to establish emergency assistance programs to pay eligible households for the purchase of gasoline.

These days, as long as you are “eligible”, just about everything you need will either be purchased for you or subsidized by the federal government.

Yes, we will always need programs to help take care of the poor, but some of the things that go on today are absolutely outrageous.

There are millions of people out there that have become extremely comfortable receiving government benefits and it will be extremely difficult to ever get them to give them up.

After all, why bust your behind for 40 or 50 hours a week at some meaningless, low paying job when you can live a similar lifestyle by just depending on government benefits?

The following is a rap video that shows the kind of mindset that is developing all across America.  Please be advised that it contains some very strong language.  It was done by a rapper known as “Mr. EBT”, and it is a perfect example of the kind of attitude that many welfare recipients have today….

Yes, everyone needs a helping hand once in a while.  But if you do have to rely on government benefits for a time, you should be fighting like crazy to improve your situation so that you can get off of them as soon as possible.

Of course the biggest welfare recipients of all are the big corporations.  The federal government showers billions upon billions of dollars on them every year, and this has got to stop.

The following example comes from an article in the Weekly Standard….

General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn’t pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.

Can you imagine a 57,000 page federal tax return?

That is absolutely disgusting and it is a perfect example of how corrupt our system has become.

All year long, GE has people pouring over the tax code just looking for any little tax loophole that it can exploit.

GE made $14,000,000,000 in profits, but they paid less taxes to the government than you or I did.

There is something very, very wrong with that picture.

All of this unnecessary welfare has got to stop.

No more free cell phones for people on welfare.

No more giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to big corporations.

We simply cannot afford it.

The U.S. debt problem is way, way out of control.  We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and it gets about 150 million dollars worse every single hour.

Sadly, none of this is likely to change any time soon.

The big corporations provide the money that our politicians need to win campaigns, and most of our politicians are very careful not to bite the hands that feed them.

On the other end of the spectrum, our economy continues to crumble and the number of poor Americans continues to increase.  So even if we don’t provide them with free cell phones, the truth is that the number of Americans that need basic food and housing is not going to go down any time soon.  In fact, it is going to go a lot higher in the years ahead.

We are rapidly becoming a European-style socialist welfare state.

In America today, the poor are absolutely showered with outrageous government benefits and so are the big corporations.

So who pays for all of this?

You and I do.

I am afraid that the joke is on us, and nothing is going to change as long as we keep sending the same kind of politicians back to Washington D.C. over and over.

The Economic Collapse

Aw, Boehner has his panties in a wad!

House Speaker John Boehner said he and fellow House Republicans oppose Senate legislation to extend through February a payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits and will push to continue the measures through 2012.

Congress should “stop, do our work and extend for one year,” Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today. He said a two-month addition creates uncertainty for employers as they budget for 2012. A “reasonable, responsible” compromise could be reached, he said, and suggested a formal conference committee between the House and the Senate to resolve differences between the two chambers.

What work is that John?

In all sobriety, you do realize how The Senate proposes to pay for this tax reduction, right?  They have added to Fannie and Freddie a fee increase.  That’s right — those very “middle class tax cuts” will be paid for by people  in the middle class who buy or refinance houses.  See, the rich don’t buy small houses, they tend to buy big houses — ones that don’t qualify for Fannie and Freddie financing.  And the poor don’t buy houses at all.

So this little game amounts to nothing more than sticking of the hand in one pocket and moving a $20 to the other.  Wow man, you got a tax cut!  (Just so long as you don’t notice that we robbed you of the same money at the same time!)

It’s worse, of course.  The Fannie and Freddie surcharge doesn’t sunset when the tax does.  In fact, it doesn’t sunset at all.  So in addition to taxing you to give it back (a worthless exercise) The Senate is further cementing these two broken GSEs into the Federal Government policy system and is creating a forward slush fund that I’m sure they’ll find some use for down the road.

Isn’t that special?  I knew you’d like it.

I’ve watched this movement, I’ve talked to people within it, I’ve observed.

And now I have to ask the salient question: Where do you actually stand on one important part of the issues facing this nation — and indeed the world?

You need to decide.  And the question being asked here is simple: Do you or do you not accept, and formulate all of your other views and premises, around the following central point — “Government must spend no more than it taxes.”

It’s a yes or no question and no weaseling is allowed.

A “yes” answer means, incidentally, that the government must cut spending by some 45%, raise taxes by 45% of the budget in received funds (not “rates” on some group — incidentally this is pretty close to a 100% tax increase!), or some combination of the two – right now.

Now let me put the gauntlet down in front of you: If you don’t support this, and come out for an immediate cessation of all deficit spending pretty much in the contemporary, immediate format, I cannot support you — and neither can anyone else with any hint of intelligence.

I recognize that “the 99%” believe they got screwed by the banksters (the “1%”, which really ought to be the 0.01%.)  You’re right.  But screwing others will not make you whole.  You cannot become better off economically by taking a dollar from one pocket and putting it in the other.

This means that the “Free $hit” army nonsense has to be eliminated from your ranks, from your speech, from your demands and from your protests.  And it has to happen now.

It should happen because you voluntarily recognize that continuing it is (1) destructive because it is (2) impossible to provide and thus (3) you will contribute to the destruction of this nation and her government if these demands continue.

Note that this does not mean you can’t argue for justice.  Justice occurs when you borrow money and can’t pay — you go bankrupt and lose your “stuff” and your credit rating.  But it also means that the person who loaned the money loses his or her investment at the same time.  That is justice — not getting a “free house” or “free education” because you “deserve” it.

It is the latter half of the check and balance found in justice that hasn’t happened.  It is the frauds involved in making bogus loans, securitizing bogus loans and lying about them, then knowingly selling crap labeled as “Grade A Chocolate”, cost-shifting in the medical system and exempting student loans from bankruptcy that has led to these problems.   Private banks put all this crap together and lobbied for it, getting the ability to steal from the common man in the process because people demanded “free stuff” and to get it government had to deficit spend.  That in turn resulted in the ability to cover up the economic rot caused by offshoring your jobs and destroying our economy — for a while.

The limits of that cycle have been reached.  It thus now will end, not because someone wants it to or doesn’t, but because the math mandates that it cannot continue.

If you continue to press for this destructive cycle to continue the damage that will be done our nation, to you, to your children and grandchildren will go up exponentially.  That damage may reach the level of government and civil society collapse, and if it does odds are that what comes out the other side is much worse than what we have now in terms of corruption and loss of freedom.

In short, we have to be adults and cut that crap out — right now.

So read the question above, debate it and then answer it.  Do so in your General Assemblies, on your mailing lists, in your public pronouncements.  But do it soon, because just as the Tea Party was co-opted by the “Guns, Gays and God” radical right wingnuts I see the same bomb-throwing rhetorical garbage corrupting what you’re trying to do from the radical left.

There is no solution in the GGG radical right wing.  It won’t work because it does not demand the cessation of the theft and fraud, the end of deficit spending right here, right now, today, and the prosecution of those who committed fraud upon the public everywhere we can find it.

But likewise there is no solution in the “bomb-throwing anarchist” left wing or calls for more “free stuff.”  It won’t work for the same reason: It does not demand the cessation of the theft and fraud, the end of deficit spending right here, right now, today, and the prosecution of those who committed fraud upon the public everywhere we can find it.

You must, and only you can, decide.

Is OWS a force for positive change, or have the real and just complaints that led to your formation been co-opted by those who have no solution to offer that can actually work and will advance justice and freedom for everyone in society, just as the Tea Party was co-opted and hi-jacked?

I, and others, are waiting for your answer.

Let’s reflect between bouts of Turkey and Pumpkin Pie, shall we?

Should you be thankful that you live in a nation that is governed as a strong Constitutional Republic?  Well, you’d have trouble doing so, considering the bailouts, swindles and frauds — not to mention the blatantly unconstitutional behavior of our governments at all levels.  From Medicare to HUD to the Education Department to Solyndra and gun running by our own government there’s little left of the Constitution and what does exist is being used as toilet paper on a literal daily basis.

Should you be thankful that you have equality of opportunity?  Well, I suppose if you’re one of the banksters that has equal opportunity to steal anything not nailed down, sure.  But if you’re one of the people victimized, as thousands of MF Global customers have been recently?  Maybe not so much eh?

Should you be thankful that you have the right of free speech and expression?  Well, certainly if you’re Newt Gingrich.  But if you’re the line of peacefully-protesting kids who were expressing themselves in California when they were bear sprayed, not so much.

The Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights are a funny thing: They’re binary.  They either exist or they do not; both are far closer to a toggle than a continuum.  In a nation where The Rule of Law meant something there would not be banksters stealing houses, there would not be other banksters with “missing” customer money, we would not have politicians standing up and telling everyone over the age of 50 they were going to get “their medicare” for the rest of their lives when factually this means that a $9,000 annual health insurance bill will go to nearly a quarter of a million dollars thirty-five years hence and we would not have politicians claiming they need to “stimulate the economy now and cut government spending tomorrow” when they know for a fact that tomorrow will never come, just as it never has before.

I would love to be thankful that there’s “no inflation” in food of materiality but when the Farm Bureau shows a double-digit increase in the cost of that Thanksgiving dinner, and even this is grossly understated, that would be giving thanks for a lie. Many years ago soft drinks were made with cane sugar.  Today they’re not, and the decreased cost is not counted as “inflation” when the price does not change.  The same “ingredient push” has occurred in virtually everything we eat — artificial colors and flavors, “texturing” ingredients that are used because they’re cheaper than the “real deal” and other adulterants — all “generally recognized as safe”, of course.  Many people have documented the “incredible shrinking container” — just try to find a half-gallon of ice cream, for example.  At the same time we’re told that we should eat from a “food pyramid” that is constructed more from the desires of agribusiness and, of course, frankenfood qualifies — even though much of it is entirely-manufactured.  Food “manufacturers” put various “stabilizing” chemicals into their products so they don’t spoil but the entire process of digestion is, if you think about it, “spoilage” — it just happens in the body.  Never mind the imagery and sales tactics – “the sales ploy of more” is of course part of what marketing is, but in fact if you stuff your pie hole and sit on your tush you’re going to get both fat and (eventually) ill.  Shouldn’t “truth in advertising” feature “People of WalMart” on the cartons of the various Frankenstein creations in the grocery aisles, given what most of that “food” will promote?

Then when we do get sick that’s “managed.”  Let’s just take one example: What’s an actual normal blood sugar level?  Will they simply “watchfully monitor” you if you’re not technically at a diabetic level on a glucose tolerance test?  Yes, the doc sure will, but guess what — if you’re overweight, and most of the people in this situation that are middle-aged and above adults are — there is only one realistic way to stop the otherwise inevitable progression: Cease stuffing the pie hole with frankenfood, lose the weight and move your butt more often.  That advice is easy to ignore when you can get “society” to pay the $500+ a month for medication and “supplies” though, isn’t it?  If the stark truth was that your options were to cut that out, spend your own cash or die would it change your decision process?  It wouldn’t for everyone but I bet it would for many, and this underlies much of what we shouldn’t be thankful for — the incessant and creeping destruction of personal responsibility and cost-shifting of all sorts, including only indirectly economic costs.

It’s not limited to food and medicine either.  Occupy Wall Street has it right in that the crooks and thieves on Wall Street have largely created this mess but they didn’t do it alone.  We have removed both choice and consequence from the people of the nation and this is the rot at the core of our nation’s problems.  You can have a student loan you can’t pay back, and it’s someone else’s fault. When the bankster is threatened with the loss of his money because he made bad student loans, it’s someone else’s fault there too and thus we must change the bankruptcy laws by removing the ability of the student to march into court and discharge the bad debt!  It’s the dumb starry-eyed consumer who bought a bubble house but when the bankster managed to give the money to the consumer through fraudulent securitization that never really happened and thus they can’t document a proper chain of ownership it’s someone else’s fault and the banksters robosign 100,000 affidavits because they can’t prove ownership of the debt due to actions and inactions of their own hand.  The majority of those who fall seriously ill are chronically so due to lifestyle decisions they made or just simple bad luck but it’s someone else’s fault and as a consequence they have to be bailed out as well.  It was someone else’s fault that the airlines didn’t armor cockpit doors prior to 9/11 so we must be sexually assaulted to fly and the airlines must be given blanket immunity from terrorist acts — even if their negligence contributes to the success of the act.

I could go on for hours — literally — on this topic.  Even the little things in life we do every day are impacted.  You can no longer play dodgeball in gym class because “someone might get hit with a ball” (never mind that’s the point of the game) and it’s “aggressive” (ditto.)  You can’t choose whether to buy a car without the 500lbs of “mandatory safety equipment” in it never mind that it’s you who gets hurt if it’s not there and you wreck — you’re forced not only to spend the thousands of dollars now but also forced to spend thousands more moving that additional mass everywhere you go in said vehicle.  I can’t choose to buy less-process or unprocessed foodstuffs (such as milk) even with full disclosure and acceptance of the risks and potential benefits — the government happily shoves a gun in the farmer’s face and threatens him with arrest if he entertains my offer to purchase.  In Texas they attempted to force all teenage girls to take a vaccine for a sexually-transmitted disease, never mind that (1) only consensual or felonious personal conduct can pass HPV from one person to another and (2) such conduct is absolutely prohibited while on school property.  We don’t even have to reach the point of safety and effectiveness of the vaccine itself in this case, even though both are open to significant doubt.

I guess I can in fact be thankful that we live in a time of relative peace, at least here in the United States.  This is not, of course, true in all parts of the world.  And I can be thankful that myself and my immediate family are healthy and enjoying a beautiful day in Florida while the turkey cooks and the pumpkin pie cools.

But that will have to do on a day that is no longer lived in the land of the free and the home of the brave, having been turned by the lack of the rule of law and shifting of responsibility and cost, along with a poisonous political process that renders us more akin to the land of the screed and the home of the slave.

It’s a day for the turkey all right.