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Wow, not much happening on WLCR forum. I’m back in the States for 2 weeks and missing all of the chatter….. Someone post something, please!
crbIt’s been a slow month in every way and today we unfortunately had some horrendous server problems which my technical guys tell me have “just about” been resolved…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.com@Scott – “horrendous server problems” are the life of those who live on the internet. 🙄
@CRBill – With upcoming elections that have probably occupied the minds of many, maybe people don’t have time to be curious about Costa Rica.
That and all the weather going on in the States and around the world.People in Us are waiting to see how much farther they have to bend over for Uncle Sam,state and local taxes. Personal income taxes for 2011 going up as follows:
10% to 15%
15% stays 15%
25%-28%
28%-31%
31%-36%
36%-39.6%
We will all need 10% raises to stay even. Capital gains from 15%-20% and dem. movement to take back to 28%.
Mean while sales tax here in Seattle is up to 9.5% and may go to 9.8%. Income tax on wealthy on the ballot (bad precedent for threshhold can be lowered). License tabs possibley going up by $100 (120% jump). Most fees have gone up 50-100% and no end in site. Makes one wonder why expatriations are up 300%. Should be a huge midterm election participation.[quote=”grb1063″]People in Us are waiting to see how much farther they have to bend over for Uncle Sam,state and local taxes. Personal income taxes for 2011 going up as follows:
10% to 15%
15% stays 15%
25%-28%
28%-31%
31%-36%
36%-39.6%
We will all need 10% raises to stay even. Capital gains from 15%-20% and dem. movement to take back to 28%.
Mean while sales tax here in Seattle is up to 9.5% and may go to 9.8%. Income tax on wealthy on the ballot (bad precedent for threshhold can be lowered). License tabs possibley going up by $100 (120% jump). Most fees have gone up 50-100% and no end in site. Makes one wonder why expatriations are up 300%. Should be a huge midterm election participation.[/quote]Federal income taxes and capital gains go back to what they were before the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.
Reducing taxes while fighting two wars and presiding over an economic meltdown from 2001 to 2009 raised the debt to GDP by a whopping 26.63%. Somebody has to pay and you can bet it wont be GWB, it’ll be you and me.
Income tax on the wealthy for Washington state? Should be OK if linked to cost of living unless you’re one of the wealthy. God knows every level of government is having problems with the unemployment what it is.
I agree with waggoner41. The Bush tax cuts were just a gimmick to garner votes to help the Republicans gain enough votes to control both houses of congress.
The Republicans did the cuts in such a way that it would be nearly impossible for the next administration to allow the taxes to raise back to their pre-Bush levels.
How did the Republicans ever expect to pay for the two needless wars that thet started?
[quote=”Blade Runner”] The Republicans did the cuts in such a way that it would be nearly impossible for the next administration to allow the taxes to raise back to their pre-Bush levels.
How did the Republicans ever expect to pay for the two needless wars that thet started?[/quote]
They didn’t expect to have to. Poor political thinking and planning in the wars in the first place assumed that the U.S. would be through Iraq and done in about 6 months. Afghanistan was a plan to only get the Taliban out and execute bin Laden.
The Bush administration was long in assuming great military strength and short in their recall of the history of both nations. The British failed in Iraq and gave it up in the ’50’s and the Russians failed in Afghanistan in the ’80’s.
The greater political errors were policies of laissez faire that allowed rogue financial instruments in the mortgage lending, banking and investment industries and supply side economics neither of which has worked in the past.
Hindsight is a great thing if you have the intelligence to use it. Bush is the only MBA ever elected to office but obviously learned little about economics.
Costa Rica has been directly affected by the problems in the States as has the entire world to a greater or lesser degree. We do feel it here with the exchange rate deteriorating as it has over the past year.
The cost of the wars is fractional compared to the cost of entitlements. Military spending is 12% of the busget. Government has gotten bloated on all levels. State and local governments have increased their budgets prior to the “mortgage market correction” at double the rate of infaltion.
The mortgage meltdown was fostered by key government legislation during Carter and Clinton that basically extorted small community banks to loan money to people that have no business or means of repaying a loan or they would be barred from opening additonal branches. I could cite all the actions taken by every President since Carter that only excacerbated the problem, but that would take pages. This was the start of the problem.
What burns me the most is that government salaries and benefits have risen 5%/year on average in my state and at least the rate of inflation on the federal level. Business does not have that luxury now. Government employess also pay little to none of their benefit costs. Businesses are always the quickest to react because they have to survive. Rather than governments cutting needless programs an streamlining, their first action is to conjure up a way to increase revenues first. This has definitely been the case in my state where the $400 billion in medicare payments from the feds was calculated in the bienium budget. Counting chickens before they are hatched is ludicrous and suicidal in the business world. The cuts only come after despearte measures fail and then the government extorts the people with the stance that if you don’t apporve these taxes we will cut police, fire, libraries and parks rather than our corrupt Labor & Indusries (workmen’s compensation with the highest payout in the country), Soical & Health Services or state DOT. This taxation mentality leads to killing the small business owner, which is the backbone of our labor market, hence the quandry we are in now.
At the rate government is growing and it is still growing on the federal level, 50% of the population will directly or indirectly support the other 50% and you will be penalized for “success” in order to support those that have learned to live off the system we have created.
We are broken, the states are broke….another bailout is coming.In response to waggoner41: Well said!
Also, don’t forget that the Pentagon had a thorough war plan for Iraq, which foretold and planned for a significant post-war effort. This plan was dismissed by Cheney; the generals that disageed with either Cheney or Bush were fired.
[quote=”grb1063″] The mortgage meltdown was fostered by key government legislation during Carter and Clinton that basically extorted small community banks to loan money to people that have no business or means of repaying a loan or they would be barred from opening additonal branches.[/quote]
I have no argument with your contention regarding the banks. What I won’t do is get into the issue of left/right, Democrat/Republican or up/down.What the progressives did the conservatives could have undone during their time in office and vice versa.
There was no oversight to prevent the [b]private mortagage lenders[/b] from writing anything they could dream up.
The end result is that we see our income being sucked away by a falling exchange rate due to a failing dollar.
I operate another forum on another topic and traffic and business has been miserable this month and was the same in June. Worse I’ve ever seen and not sure why. The real economy among “common” people is the worst it has been in decades.
I remember the early discussions about the war in Iraq was supposed to pay for itself from oil revenue. . . HA HA HA HA. . .
The realestate meltdown was largely the fault of the regulators and big accounting houses (CPA’s) that were supposed to protect the public from the bank’s greed, the Berni Madoffs and Enrons of the world . . . No different than the other major financial disasters of the past decades except they get bigger and bigger. Jail or hang a few who are responsible, including regulators and these problems may not reoccur. Without penalties, it will happen again.
It IS going to happen again.
One of the lowest risk crimes is white collar (IE financial) crime. Do the crime, hide the money, do a few years in a cushy Federal prison and then leave with the money. . . Why do you think real estate scams are so popular? All the money disappears into friends and relatives pockets, off-shore real estate, hidden assets (gold coins, bullion) and the punishment is an easy way to “earn” all that money. The bigger the score (millions) the lower the cost per dollar. . . Its a calculated cost and risk.
The economic failure and soft real estate market has probably ended the possibility of my move to CR. I keep hoping it will get better, but it just gets worse and worse. . .
Let get rid of small business and pray for a recovery too. FDR way of thinking. Buy a clue with your food stamps before your Social Sec. is long gone.
[quote=”guru”] The economic failure and soft real estate market has probably ended the possibility of my move to CR. I keep hoping it will get better, but it just gets worse and worse. . .[/quote]
What, then, should be the penalty for taking a persons financial condition and future away?Michael Milken was a great example of the slap on the wrist.
I vote to hang ’em.
Waterboard the bastards first – hundreds of times – then hang’em.
Remembering that when we waterboard people it’s not “torture” although we sentenced some Japanese people to death for “waterboarding” but everyone knows that when they do it, it is “torture.”
Scott
PS. I worked for the same firm as Michael Milken but on a VERY different level.
[quote=”Scott”]Waterboard the bastards first – hundreds of times – then hang’em.
Remembering that when we waterboard people it’s not “torture” although we sentenced some Japanese people to death for “waterboarding” but everyone knows that when they do it, it is “torture.”
Scott
PS. I worked for the same firm as Michael Milken but on a VERY different level.[/quote]
I am reading a book called “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis. Now, I know nothing about the market, bonds etc. but this book has convinced me that almost no one had a clue about what was happening before it all went down. Maybe I’m wrong or maybe that is exactly true, but it is an enjoyable and provocative read. If others more knowledgeable about these things would read it and offer their opinion, I would appreciate it.
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