Tag: taxes

(The following was cross posted from Economic Populist and Venomopolis.)

I’m a sucker for barbecues, especially good ones.  Normally I’m not a “family” person, but I am a people person.  When it comes to barbecues, though I tend to even go to the ones my family puts out.  This year I hosted, unfortunately the weather was not on my side and being someone into risk management I decided to hold an “indoor bbq.”  The food, as always, was good, but my other type of appetite was also satisfied, my hunger for news and tid bits

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

I am a discontent and distressed taxpayer!  “Disgruntled” is a word that might describe my deep dissatisfaction with how my tax dollars are spent.  Yet, on April 15, 2009, typically thought of as “Tax Day,” I felt no need to join my fellow citizens in protest.  I did not attend a “Tea Party”.  I too believe, in this country, “taxation without representation” is a problem.  One only need ponder the profits of lobbyists to understand the premise.  Corporate supplicants amass a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investments.  The average American is happy to realize a two-digit increase.  Nonetheless, as much as I too may argue the point, assessments are paid without accountability, what concerns me more is my duty dollars did not support what I think ethical projects.  

(Author’s note: Much thanks to Bondad for the data, without him, I could not complete this. )

It seems Congress is looking into getting the tax code to work in bringing jobs here.  Also, on the inflation front, Dow Chemical is reporting that material costs have become a financial tumor.  Folks, welcome to another edition of Manufacturing Monday!

It’s refreshing to see that some businesses are doing well in today’s economy.  Perhaps the most successful venture going today is the pawn shop.  From Peoria to Pasadena,  pawn shops are seeing a boom in clients.

Says Doug Robinson, a pawn shop owner in Pasadena,

We’ve been on a continuous uphill run for a number of months.  I don’t see anything that will stop it.

Worse even than the paycheck advance loans, a pawn shop loan typically involves an annual interest rate in excess of 50%.  Yes, that is fifty percent per year.  In Mississippi, the cap is 25% per month, which is 300% per year (if not compounded monthly).  

Given that credit card debt is often 18% or higher, it is incredibly sad to imagine the poor soul who pawns an object at 50% interest to pay that very same object off on the 18% credit card debt.  

We continue to hear from the strains of Right Wing Hate Radio programming to the musings in conservative rags such as the Washington Times that the media has a Liberal Bias to the stories they cover.  

The Neo-Con’s whine and cry and complain that the New York Times (to a conservative, synonymous with George Soros’ personal newspaper), CNN, The Washington Post, USA Today, BBC News, NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and on and on, are nothing more than the mouthpieces of the dangerous liberal movement in our country!  The Wingnut set decries these media outlets for only giving us one side, TEH LIBERAL SIDE, of any story.

Still rolling on here in our quest to find the liberal bias in the so-called Liberal Media outlets.  We’ve been to The Peoples Republic of CNN, we have viewed the writings in The George Soros New York Times and lastly we sailed across the great Atlantic divide to take on the DNC-BBC right there in jolly-old-England.

So far, ….nothing!  Not unlike weapons of mass destrcution in Iraq, no liberal bias was found.  How can that be?!?

Today we will go where NO KONSERVATIVE has gone before and have a look at the most hated of Liberal News Outlets, NPR (aka National Public Progressive Radio).

The wingers hate this news outlet more than any other, due to the fact that not only does some of THEIR tax money go into paying for NPR, but NPR to them is the one place on radio that everyone can access talk radio without having to listenen to Right Wing Hate Radio.  It really pisses them off!

Tuesday is Tax Day, which prompts people to ask: What is the government doing with my money?

Well, there’s a trillion or two or three for the Iraq war.

Not to worry, says President Bush.  The war is consuming only a “modest fraction” of the country’s wealth.

The National Priorities Project says that in 2007 the federal government spent 42.2 percent of every income tax dollar on military spending.

There’s an old cliche that figures don’t lie but liars figure.  Who you gonna believe — the guy who lied us into the war?