The assault of the banks and the government on people making more than $50,000 per year continues unabated in the US. Local, state, and federal tax rates and collections efforts are at an all time high as entitlements and the costs of corrupt local governments continue to expand at a double digit rate.
Because property taxes do not depend upon income, those whose incomes have declined have had to borrow to pay them. In addition inflation in food and energy prices, that are one in the same anyway, has eroded the value of net income after all taxes have been accounted for.
The erosion on productivity of the US, still the most productive country in the world on a per capita basis, caused by the stresses on the survival income of the middle class bodes ill for the solution to a 155 trillion dollar federal deficit and the estimated 100 trillion in bad loans hiding like a caldera before it explodes deep within the banking system. Both crises are sucking the lifeblood out of the middle class through job loss because of the lack of liquidity in lending to new business ventures, and the higher cost of commodities such as energy and food created by an exponential growth in worldwide demand particularly in both southwestern and far east Asia.
To the surprise of the doom and gloomers such as Warren Buffet, who again makes some boneheaded prediction that gasoline will go to six dollars a gallon and result in the complete paralysis of civilization. the price went down. To look at Warren's "recent era" performance you can safely ignore his misguided view of capital markets as a zero sum game.
What really happened is that people stayed home and gave a big howdy doo to the oil companies and the price went DOWN! Hello? Who woulda thunk it?
No comments:
Post a Comment