Sales Tax Collection on Home Sales To Begin In 2013

Is this true? Sort of.

A few days ago, I got one of those emails that says everybody is going to have to pay a 3.8 percent sales tax on their homes after Dec. 31.

As it turns out, the tax really only applies to the rich. I think what pisses me off the most about it- is that it was part of that Obamacare debacle. Since when does the sales tax on a home have anything to do with healthcare??

Pulling that kind of sneaky shit is typical of this whole administration. 

The other problem is the beach head problem. Government loves to establish a beach head, a safe tax targeting a subclass like the rich. The majority of people don't care because it doesn't affect them. Then slowly, over time, the government expands the sales tax to include everyone because it's no longer "fair" to just tax the rich.

Here's fact check on the home sales- sales tax. http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/a-38-percent-sales-tax-on-your-home/ 

 

Healthcare a Mess? Who Knew?

I am amazed when a story hits the media declaring health care in this country a catastrophe. It is far worse than that.

A great run on sentence follows here:

Mix capitalism, pharmaceutical price fixing and 20 year monopolies on new drugs, greed, unlimited litigation and awards, greed, ridiculous premiums on malpractice insurance, greed, hospital administrators making 7 figs, hospitals charging virtually anything they can get away with, fraud, greed, ridiculous and unneeded charges and tests, patent protection and gouging on new devices, soaring insurance premiums and third party billing designed to eliminate input from patients on excessive charges, and then a compulsory new tax called Obamacare which will add another 40 million people and expenses with pent up medical demands and VOILA!

F.U.B.A.R. http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/05/13689103-us-health-care-its-officially-a-mess-institute-says?lite

When the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

Wow, what a morning. After a crazy night with a friend at the hospital, I got up around 930 am to see the great market rally. Knowing that the unemployment report for August is not due out until tomorrow- I scanned the headlines for the reason behind this 250 point rally.

Underwhelmed. Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank's Ben Bernanke, said that the ECB was prepared to issue bonds for all of those mounting debts of Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, and a few other countries to be named in a year or two.

This is the new normal. Insanity.

The cure for worldwide debt is to simply issue more debt. With interest. Then have a big short covering rally as once again- bankers manipulate markets. Morons like me, who have never seen a better shorting possibility ever, get creamed again. If you are on the short side- you have to be getting tired of having your ass kicked by the world banking cabal. Indeed, the cure is worse than the disease. More debt. It has to be a banker's fantasy.

Imagine my glee were my significant other to say to me, "Hey honey I paid off that 5000 dollar credit card we owe at 9% with a new card that has a 15% interest rate." In the new world insanity, this would be fantastic news. I would then run out and buy 1000 bucks worth of worthless shit and add it to the new card.

It's like going to the doctor with syphilis. The doctor says, "I am going to amputate your penis to prevent this from re-occurring." Upon hearing this, I immediately jump for joy at the far sightedness of my doctor.

So this morning I watched CNBC and all of the stock touts talk about how smart they are and why everyone should be in this market.

We'll see how fucking brilliant these people are tomorrow when that unemployment report comes out and unemployment ticks up to 8.4% or so. We can't afford a real recovery. Inflation would go supernova.

I am in no hurry to short this market as it goes sideways for a few more months. But I am getting much closer.

Good Gamblers Never Take Gambles

Very often, as a former poker player, I used to run into situations where all of the marks or pigeons in a game had gone broke and had been forced to leave the table. Generally this meant that the remaining players were all equally matched and winning money now- was hard and very often- simply a matter of luck. Not to mention that the game gets boring.

Without a significant and proven edge, in any game, you cannot win over time. Often, the losers don't want to come to grips with why they lost. They simply leave and they don't come back.

If I had to play in a poker game with a bunch of people like me- I wouldn't play.

Imagine a casino that offers all kinds of games. Roulette, blackjack, craps, pai gow. One day the casino informs it's customers that they will no longer offer all of these other games any longer. "We can't make enormous profits on those games like we used to because of the overhead and because all of our customers have turned into misers and cheapskates. From now on, we will only offer keno."

The casino helped kill it's customer base. I hate keno. By the way, keno was invented in Butte, Mt. http://www.butteamerica.com/keno.htm

That's what bankers have done to the investment world. You can't make a dime anywhere else. Bankers and their fiat money have ruined all other forms of investment. Even real estate. They have funneled every last investment dollar into the stock market desperately trying to keep it alive.

Simply stated, when the Federal Reserve loans member banks all of the money they want at 0%, why would banks need or want your money? Why pay any interest? Why make any loans when they can repair their balance sheets with bond interest? Why indeed. 

It's no wonder banks aren't lending. They don't need to. They have a constant supply of free money with which they can buy bonds and fleece taxpayers who have to pay interest on that bond debt. We'd call all of that theft- if it wasn't so ingenious.

So people looking for a return on capital have one choice left. Equity markets.

It's like a giant keno game. Players are encouraged to pick some numbers or stock symbols. Some numbers win, most lose. Our entire way of life is hinged to that keno game right now. Millions of people are betting that their stocks will go up- that they have some significant and proven edge over the other players. Maybe that edge is the right sector, the right fund manager. Perhaps their edge is that they work harder and smarter than all of the other players.

Whether they know it or not- they are all relying on one huge assumption. That somebody will be available to buy what they need to sell.

We are at the end of the poker game. The easy money is gone. All we are left with is this giant keno game where the only players left are professional investors and bankers. They keep trying to lure some pigeons back into the game. They change the rules once the pigeons figure them out. And in 13 years time, the stock market is still at about the same levels as it was in 2000. Perhaps a little higher. This after they threw some bankrupt companies out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average like GM and added companies like Microsoft. We have been at these same stock market levels for the past 13 years. With dollars worth far less than they once were. It begs the question. Is our market actually higher...priced with dollars worth fractionally less than the dollars of 2000? If we have an annual 2.5% inflation rate multiplied by 13 years...have we not lost a collective 32.5% in buying power since 2000? Is this market actually higher? Probably not.

But more importantly- in a world full of debt and increasing taxes- where the richest demographic just happens to be the largest demographic- just who are the boomers going to sell price inflated stocks to? It is the law of supply and demand. Boomers had the same dilemma with housing. Over supply and low demand. That's what's going to happen when younger folks realize that the stock market presents far more risk than potential compensation. Far more supply than demand.They aren't going to buy.

I simply can't see this market going higher unless it does so with inflated currency as the Fed continues to print. You can't repeal the laws of supply and demand. Retail investors cannot compete with algorithms. They can't navigate inflation and taxes. They have to respect a predatory government that will change rules and confiscate property to survive. Sooner or later, the players will leave this game. The wisest ones will leave far sooner than the rest.

Sometimes the only win- is simply not to play. The best gamblers never gamble.

An Ode to Harry Markopolis

The difference between genius and stupidity is, genius has it's limits.

Over the weekend, I saw another news report of the impending California economic implosion- you know- the one Meredith Whitney predicted a year and a half ago...

It hasn't happened yet- but it will. Meredith Whitney made the same mistake that I always made when shorting markets. Always early. http://archive.mises.org/19120/meredith-whitneys-dream-coming-true/

Never underestimate the willingness of your adversaries to keep an ugly truth from becoming a hideous reality. They will hide, conceal, mislead, inject capital, raise taxes, borrow from any source, employ crooked auditors, fudge numbers, do anything imaginable to keep the truth from becoming truth. Because when they do, two things happen.

Ultimately they get exposed as frauds. Secondly, the whole scheme comes crashing down ala Bernie Madoff. And Bernie Madoff is a perfectly good example of a fraud that should have been uncovered 10 years before it was. Unfortunately,  NOBODY had an interest in telling that truth. The truth was quite inconvenient for everyone. Except competing interests. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/24/bernard-madoff-whistleblower-harry-markopolos

Folks like Meredith Whitney, Harry Markopolis, or some guy on the street like Frankenstein Government- have credibility problems. Nobody has a vested interest in hearing a nasty truth nor do people attach credibility when nothing disastrous nor imminent is taking place. They would much rather listen to all of the bullshit and lies being spun to them by bankers, politicians, and the crony media. Everything is going to be ok. These are the institutions that people find "credible." The same people that stole their home equity, the people stealing money in the form of taxes that can only go higher and higher, bankers and politicians now desperately trying to keep the banking Ponzi scheme afloat while trillions and trillions of debt and liabilities are concealed by accounting practices designed to deceive virtually everyone.

How long can this last?

For 10 years, Harry Markopolis tried to get the SEC off their dead, porn watching asses and do something about Bernie Madoff's ridiculous gains year after year. Peter Schiff warned CNBC viewers for two years that the housing market and banks were going to implode- nobody listened.

On a much grander scale, it's time to listen. Here's a guy I like. A good read from Dave over at the Golden Truth. http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-gold-is-going-much-higher.html

 

A Long Weekend...

I was scanning the blogosphere tonight and stumbled onto an excellent piece via the Canadian Free Press. It's about the nanny state. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/49229?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#.UESLBCy3jgA.twitter



I want to say one think bout Obama's economic strategy. There is no doubt in my mind...none...that Obama is clearly trying to destroy our Republic via the Cloward Piven strategy of putting everybody on welfare. Here's the proof. http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2012/08/four-years-later-america-is-not-better.html

Obama's not stupid. He does what he does... on purpose.

Motorcycle Vigilance

On Wednesday as I was going to work, two young boys on bicycles did something incredibly stupid. They left the sidewalk, rode out across a heavily congested Boise thoroughfare without warning, and subsequently caused several vehicles to slam on their brakes. Unfortunately, a black Harley Davidson Road King was embedded in traffic. The rider slammed into the car in front of him.

I was about 400 feet north of the accident and saw the whole thing unfold as I traveled south. The rider was flat on his back with a huge bloody laceration on the back of his head as I passed by. The throttle was wide open as the weight of the right side of the bike was bearing down onto the pavement. I'm not sure what happened to those idiot kids.

Several years ago, law enforcement fell into this trend of calling motor vehicle accidents "collisions" because as the theory goes..."accidents" were preventable and the term collision was more precise.  Such is the minutia of our age.

I have ridden a quarter million miles on motorcycles over 30 years. I have been in four accidents. They were probably all preventable. It didn't matter who had the right of way. In any collision involving a motorcycle, the motorcyclist loses. So the idea of simply riding and obeying the law will not work for riders. People running stop lights will kill you. It will not matter to your loved ones or your corpse who had the right of way. So what I thought I'd do today is list some things that have nearly killed me, wrecks that I have witnessed, things to pay attention to. My collective experience.

1. If you don't have to ride a motorcycle, don't start. They are extremely dangerous and if they were invented tomorrow, they'd be outlawed.

2. Now that you have ignored the sound advice listed in (1)... here is the list.

3. Learn HOW to properly ride a motorcycle. Learn how to lean, how to operate both brakes in unison. Learn when not to ride- like in rain, ice, or at night. Always check your bike's equipment, tires, brake lines before riding. Don't modify your bike with extreme accessories. Heavily modified bikes are harder to maneuver. Giant ape hangers will not help you avoid a collision. Modified bikes are in a proportionately higher amount of fatal collisions than less modified bikes. Some modifications are good. Consider those. Many bikes have anti lock brakes and Gold wings have airbags. Really.

4. Wear protective clothing. Closed footwear, gloves, leather. Protective eye wear. Cover areas of the body that will be struck by flying debris like sand, rocks, insects, or other airborne objects.

5. Wearing a helmet is up to you and the law where you live. In areas I am unfamiliar with, I wear the helmet. On local trips to the store and back, I don't. If I am familiar with a route, I will leave the helmet behind. If you are an inexperienced rider with less than 10 years time, I would say...wear a helmet. If you have a passenger- make them wear a helmet.

6. Always ride in the number 1 lane or near the crown (middle) of a road. You get a little bit more reaction time and objects around intersections become more visible. You have more room to maneuver rather than being pinned against a curb. Debris slides down the crown of a road and you are less likely to strike it.

7. Always watch for debris on the road. Rocks, loose sand, RV air conditioner lids, lumber. Never, ever ride behind a vehicle with an unsecured load. I watched a plastic cooler lid come out of the back of a truck once and nearly take the head off of a rider in front of me. In fact, I avoid riding behind pickups if I can- especially those just merging onto a highway.

8. Triple your following distances. You and your bike weigh a combined 1000 pounds. Trying to get that type of weight shut down using only about 3 squares inches of rubber on two tires- makes for some harrowing stops. That's why bikes get put down. They slow down (more friction) better on their sides and I am not kidding. Obviously, speed in excess of 70 calls for you to dramatically increase following distances. If it is raining, you are really in trouble. Wet brakes and a wet surface will virtually guarantee you will slide forever. I refuse to ride in rain unless I am someplace desolate or the rain is light or I can reduce my speed considerably. Even when it's dry, motorcycles are hard to stop. I left 140 feet of skid marks at 50 MPH once and still managed to break my arms, ribs, and put a 4000 dollar dent into a Ford F-150. 

9. Do not ride at night if at all possible. If you must, know the route well. I cannot tell you how many riders I know that have been killed and injured by loose livestock and wild animals. The number of DUI drivers tend to increase after 11 PM. I hit a giant pothole one night in Kansas City which threw us both off the bike and caused 2 grand worth of damage. At 5 MPH. I would have seen that giant crater during the day. Bad things happen to motorcycles when it's dark out.

10. Notice blind intersections on routes you use frequently. They kill and injure riders all of the time. If shrubbery, buildings, planter boxes, signs, and other obstacles are blocking another motorist's view of you- you won't see them either. Never enter a blind intersection, even with a green light, without looking for idiots running through it. Three times this has saved my life- last year I had an idiot running a red light miss me by less than a yard. I forgot this rule and almost became roadkill. Note blind intersections and never forget them- avoid them where you can.

11. Never, ever, trust other motorists. With the advent of cellphones this has gotten worse. When changing lanes, always physically glance. I still do. Every once in awhile I catch someone in a blind spot that I didn't know was there. I don't ever trust turn signals.

12. Most collisions with other vehicles occur when someone exits parking onto a roadway quickly or turns left in front of you. These types of collisions are hard things to prevent such as deer running out of roadside trees. This is the best case I can make for wearing a helmet. Sometimes collisions are unpreventable.

13. Know the routes you are traveling in advance on long trips. Avoid chip sealed highways and highways where they are stripping and eating the pavement away as they prepare for a new layer of asphalt. These areas of road "destruction" can be very hazardous. Especially when people are exceeding posted speeds on chip seal that has not been swept.

14. Gut instinct. If something doesn't feel right, don't act irrationally. Years ago I was following a farmer doing 50 MPH in a 60 zone in Iowa. I was going to pass him but I didn't. I could see his head bobbing around. Suddenly he turned left, no blinker, right through a ditch to a field service road I would never have noticed. Had I been passing him...ugh. Be very careful around farm machinery also. They turn suddenly. In Idaho- we are mostly an open range state. Cows wander around and they are plenty stupid. Give all of those things a wide berth.

15. Don't ever drink or drug while riding. Don't subject yourself to diminished reaction times. Taking a dangerous activity and making it even more dangerous- thins the herd quickly.

16. One last thing that I almost forgot. Always check your mirrors when stopped in traffic at a light or a sign. Be prepared to run a light if you have to. People rear end motorcycles too. 

17. Don't ride motorcycles.

Years ago, my boss suggested getting motorcycles for the police department. I politely refused. Motorcycles offer no cover and they are simply too dangerous where kids (young cops) are concerned. And when I say kid- I am talking about anyone under 30. Ten years of riding experience would be my bare minimum plus training courses. I love motorcycles. I don't want to discourage anyone from riding but riders should understand the dangers. They are plenty and they can be grievous. I have had two broken arms, a few broken ribs, and more lacerations and road rash than I care to remember. If you ride- please stay vigilant at all times.

Having said all of that, it is time to hop on my motorcycle and go to work. I wish you all a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend.