WE DEMAND INTERNET TAXES!!!

Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as ‘sportsplace violence’

Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program

US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?

Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy

This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb’s blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester

White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras

Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world’s sexiest corpse

Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school

Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition

Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State

Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: ‘rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good’

Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as ‘undocumented sex partners’

Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested

Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead

Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending

Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances

Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons

Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago

Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new ‘Republicans For Democrats’ strategy aimed at losing elections

Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country

Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to ‘Traps’

White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out

New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman’s economic policies stolen

White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class

To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead

State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations

Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they’re just running forward

President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward

Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects

World ends; S&P soars

Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood

Meek inherit Earth, can’t afford estate taxes

Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway

Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013

Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama

As Santa’s workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of ‘naughty and nice’ list

Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves

Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium

Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future

Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs

Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion’s latter day prophet

Imam Rauf’s peaceful solution: ‘Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt’

Study: Obama’s threat to burn tax money in Washington ‘recruitment bonanza’ for Tea Parties

Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov’t raises retirement age to at least 814 years

Obama attends church service, worships self

Obama proposes national ‘Win The Future’ lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov’t spending

Historical revisionists: “Hey, you never know”

Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh

Israelis to Egyptian rioters: “don’t damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild”

Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness

Al Gore: It’s a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears

Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke

Obama’s teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights

Obama calls new taxes ‘spending reductions in tax code.’ Elsewhere rapists tout ‘consent reductions in sexual intercourse’

Obama’s teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: “Too few words”

Obama’s Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov’t

Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost

Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity “Religion of Peace,” praises “moderate Christians,” promises to send one into space

Republicans block Obama’s $ 420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck

White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus

Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed

Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book “The Road to Smurfdom”

Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth’s atmosphere

Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people’s suffering: “When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?”

Obama regrets the US government didn’t provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college

Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!

Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: ‘Come again soon!’

Obama to tornado victims: ‘We inherited this weather from the previous administration’

Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome

People’s Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies

Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, “only 1% allowed to reach Israel”

Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans

Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law

Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama’s bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond

Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics

Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof

Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels

Poll: Progressive slogan ‘We should be more like Europe’ most popular with members of American Nazi Party

Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend

May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above

Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel “50 Shades of Hay”

Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name

Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich

Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag

Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its “President for Life”

Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off

Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named “Fat And Furious”

Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed

White House: “Let them eat statistics”

Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama

I Own The World
Supercommissar Maksim
It’s Big Fur Hat
Blur-Brain
Terry Colon
The Fine Report
The Looking Spoon
Sad Hill News
Professor Kurgman
kathy blog
FAQster
AWOL Civilization
BestObamaFacts.com
Looking at the Left
Red Planet Cartoons
Julia Gorin
Brain Terminal
Death By 1000 Papercuts
Zombietime

The People’s Cube

WE DEMAND INTERNET TAXES!!!

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

In response to 55% of Americans Say Their Income Taxes are Fair; 46.6% Paid No Income Tax in 2011 one seriously misguided soul responded “your hate for low income people disturbing”.

The above response was humorous because the math shows a large number of people are unhappy even though thy pay no income taxes at all. Nowhere did I state or imply any hatred of anyone.

On a far more credible note, I received an email from Ironman at the Political Calculations blog who posted this chart on “Who Really Isn’t Paying Their Fair Share of Income Taxes?“

click on chart for sharper image

I asked Ironman to explain the chart. Here is his reply.

We used U.S. Census data to model the total aggregate income earned by individual Americans for each $ 100 increment of income in 2009 to create the “blue” income distribution bell curve using regression analysis, which we originally did as part of another project, where we modeled the total money income distribution of Americans.

We then took the Tax Policy Center’s data for the percentage of tax units without income tax liability for given levels of income and modeled that as well – and in doing that, we also get the percentage of tax units that do have income tax liability over the same income range.

We then multiplied the percentage of tax units with income tax liability by the total amount of aggregate income earned within a given amount of income to determine the portion of that aggregate U.S. income that is subject to income taxes.  That result is represented as the “red”-shaded bell curve on the chart.

The unshaded region under the “blue” total aggregate income curve is then the portion of income earned by Americans that is not subject to income taxes. 

What If?

In a followup email, I asked Ironman what the result would have been, if a 100% tax on all income above $ 1 million been in place. To that question he replied …

“By our calculation, the U.S. government would have taken in $ 800 billion more in tax revenue if it had taxed people making more than $ 1 million at 100 percent, according to IRS data from 2008, the year Ryan used as his base point.”

Thus, even taxing people making over $ 1 million at a rate of 100% would not have balanced the budget. Of course, if you tax anything at 100%, you are not going to get anywhere near the amount theoretically expected.

Some might point out interest income, but others would point out disability and food stamps. Specifically, I would like to point out Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution.

Simply put, if you pay people enough to do nothing at all, you are going to encourage a lot of fraud by people willing to do nothing.

Regardless of what you think about top income earners, the system is setup to encourage fraud and avoidance at both ends of the scale.

Who suffers? Those in the middle.

Perhaps it’s time for a consumption tax, excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes. Perhaps some combination of flat income tax in conjunction with a consumption tax excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes.

My only fear in suggesting such a thing is government nearly always screws things up by implementing things in a matter that will make matters worse.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

In response to 55% of Americans Say Their Income Taxes are Fair; 46.6% Paid No Income Tax in 2011 one seriously misguided soul responded “your hate for low income people disturbing”.

The above response was humorous because the math shows a large number of people are unhappy even though thy pay no income taxes at all. Nowhere did I state or imply any hatred of anyone.

On a far more credible note, I received an email from Ironman at the Political Calculations blog who posted this chart on “Who Really Isn’t Paying Their Fair Share of Income Taxes?“

click on chart for sharper image

I asked Ironman to explain the chart. Here is his reply.

We used U.S. Census data to model the total aggregate income earned by individual Americans for each $ 100 increment of income in 2009 to create the “blue” income distribution bell curve using regression analysis, which we originally did as part of another project, where we modeled the total money income distribution of Americans.

We then took the Tax Policy Center’s data for the percentage of tax units without income tax liability for given levels of income and modeled that as well – and in doing that, we also get the percentage of tax units that do have income tax liability over the same income range.

We then multiplied the percentage of tax units with income tax liability by the total amount of aggregate income earned within a given amount of income to determine the portion of that aggregate U.S. income that is subject to income taxes.  That result is represented as the “red”-shaded bell curve on the chart.

The unshaded region under the “blue” total aggregate income curve is then the portion of income earned by Americans that is not subject to income taxes. 

What If?

In a followup email, I asked Ironman what the result would have been, if a 100% tax on all income above $ 1 million been in place. To that question he replied …

“By our calculation, the U.S. government would have taken in $ 800 billion more in tax revenue if it had taxed people making more than $ 1 million at 100 percent, according to IRS data from 2008, the year Ryan used as his base point.”

Thus, even taxing people making over $ 1 million at a rate of 100% would not have balanced the budget. Of course, if you tax anything at 100%, you are not going to get anywhere near the amount theoretically expected.

Some might point out interest income, but others would point out disability and food stamps. Specifically, I would like to point out Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution.

Simply put, if you pay people enough to do nothing at all, you are going to encourage a lot of fraud by people willing to do nothing.

Regardless of what you think about top income earners, the system is setup to encourage fraud and avoidance at both ends of the scale.

Who suffers? Those in the middle.

Perhaps it’s time for a consumption tax, excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes. Perhaps some combination of flat income tax in conjunction with a consumption tax excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes.

My only fear in suggesting such a thing is government nearly always screws things up by implementing things in a matter that will make matters worse.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

In response to 55% of Americans Say Their Income Taxes are Fair; 46.6% Paid No Income Tax in 2011 one seriously misguided soul responded “your hate for low income people disturbing”.

The above response was humorous because the math shows a large number of people are unhappy even though thy pay no income taxes at all. Nowhere did I state or imply any hatred of anyone.

On a far more credible note, I received an email from Ironman at the Political Calculations blog who posted this chart on “Who Really Isn’t Paying Their Fair Share of Income Taxes?“

click on chart for sharper image

I asked Ironman to explain the chart. Here is his reply.

We used U.S. Census data to model the total aggregate income earned by individual Americans for each $ 100 increment of income in 2009 to create the “blue” income distribution bell curve using regression analysis, which we originally did as part of another project, where we modeled the total money income distribution of Americans.

We then took the Tax Policy Center’s data for the percentage of tax units without income tax liability for given levels of income and modeled that as well – and in doing that, we also get the percentage of tax units that do have income tax liability over the same income range.

We then multiplied the percentage of tax units with income tax liability by the total amount of aggregate income earned within a given amount of income to determine the portion of that aggregate U.S. income that is subject to income taxes.  That result is represented as the “red”-shaded bell curve on the chart.

The unshaded region under the “blue” total aggregate income curve is then the portion of income earned by Americans that is not subject to income taxes. 

What If?

In a followup email, I asked Ironman what the result would have been, if a 100% tax on all income above $ 1 million been in place. To that question he replied …

“By our calculation, the U.S. government would have taken in $ 800 billion more in tax revenue if it had taxed people making more than $ 1 million at 100 percent, according to IRS data from 2008, the year Ryan used as his base point.”

Thus, even taxing people making over $ 1 million at a rate of 100% would not have balanced the budget. Of course, if you tax anything at 100%, you are not going to get anywhere near the amount theoretically expected.

Some might point out interest income, but others would point out disability and food stamps. Specifically, I would like to point out Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution.

Simply put, if you pay people enough to do nothing at all, you are going to encourage a lot of fraud by people willing to do nothing.

Regardless of what you think about top income earners, the system is setup to encourage fraud and avoidance at both ends of the scale.

Who suffers? Those in the middle.

Perhaps it’s time for a consumption tax, excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes. Perhaps some combination of flat income tax in conjunction with a consumption tax excluding food, medicine, and essential clothes.

My only fear in suggesting such a thing is government nearly always screws things up by implementing things in a matter that will make matters worse.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Graph Shows Who Is And Who Isn"t Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

Tweet

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.

Then there’s the bad news.

For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.

Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?

Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

Tweet

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.

Then there’s the bad news.

For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.

Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?

Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

Tweet

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.

Then there’s the bad news.

For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.

Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?

Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots

Half of Detroit Properties Have Not Paid Taxes; Update on Detroit Bankruptcy

Tweet

The hollowing out of Detroit is nearly complete. All that’s left is a bankrupt shell of a city with no services and scattered citizens that do not pay taxes.

The Detroit News reports Half of Detroit Property Owners Don’t Pay Taxes

Nearly half of the owners of Detroit’s 305,000 properties failed to pay their tax bills last year, exacerbating a punishing cycle of declining revenues and diminished services for a city in a financial crisis, according to a Detroit News analysis of government records.

The News reviewed more than 200,000 pages of tax documents and found that 47 percent of the city’s taxable parcels are delinquent on their 2011 bills. Some $ 246.5 million in taxes and fees went uncollected, about half of which was due Detroit and the rest to other entities, including Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools and the library.

Delinquency is so pervasive that 77 blocks had only one owner who paid taxes last year, The News found. Many of those who don’t pay question why they should in a city that struggles to light its streets or keep police on them.

“Why pay taxes?” asked Fred Phillips, who owes more than $ 2,600 on his home on an east-side block where five owners paid 2011 taxes. “Why should I send them taxes when they aren’t supplying services? It is sickening. … Every time I see the tax bill come, I think about the times we called and nobody came.”

Update on Detroit Bankruptcy

Detroit is financially and morally bankrupt yet the governor refuses to make that declaration. A Review team says Detroit faces financial crisis, has no plan to fix it so why won’t the governor act?

For the second time in a year, a state review team has found Detroit is in a financial emergency that requires Gov. Rick Snyder to intervene in City Hall.

But this time, if Snyder agrees that a financial emergency exists, the governor’s choices are more limited. He could appoint an emergency manager to keep Michigan’s largest city from plunging into bankruptcy, experts say, or he could continue state financial supervision through a new consent agreement, which seems a faint possibility.

State Treasurer Andy Dillon ruled out a bankruptcy filing at this time.

The six-member review team unanimously concluded in a report released Tuesday that the city failed to restructure its debt-laden bureaucracy under the financial consent agreement signed in April and that Detroit’s financial crisis requires Snyder’s intervention “because no satisfactory plan exists to resolve a serious financial problem.”

Chapter 9 bankruptcy is “always a possibility but I don’t think the city should go through (Chapter) 9 to cure its ailments,” he added.

The review team said the city’s charter adds “numerous restrictions” and hurdles for closing departments, canceling contracts and the type of wholesale restructuring financial experts say is necessary to make city government live within its means.

Restrictions? Who Cares?

In bankruptcy, restrictions go out the window. So do union contracts and pensions. Since all of that needs to go out the window, what’s holding the governor back?

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Half of Detroit Properties Have Not Paid Taxes; Update on Detroit Bankruptcy

NDAA Ruled Unconstitutional - Obama Sued - RT News

Tweet

NDAA Ruled Unconstitutional - Obama Sued - RT News