There is only one way to stop the spending......you have to STARVE the beast any way that you can. In other words, if the money doesn't come in to any gov't, EVENTUALLY the spending will stop. They can print money til it is worthless, they can borrow til no one will loan any more.....so ultimately it comes to taxes. All the bitching about overspending does little good......so the problem has to be attacked from the taxing side. Stosh
By the way, before they stop entitlement spending (buying votes), I wouldn't be surprised to see them selling parks, highways, military bases, weapons, gov't buildings, etc. Once the beast reaches a certain size he needs to be fed large and often. Stosh
I want one of those old Nike missile sites that are in the hills surrounding LA. Yeah, thats the ticket.
Yep. I lived in NYC for 10 years and paid a 3.1% NY City Tax on top of State and Federal back in the early 90's. And if you commute in from New Jersey or Connecticut, or NY State you are subjected to a Non-Resident City Tax.... usually around 1% or more. But leave it to Gnome and his political bias to conveniently fail to mention that the 6.85% rate is completely "lowball" given that the current NYC tax is 3.65% And by the way, one is not deductible from the other. Thus, you need to take account of the combined state and local tax rate. 6.85 + 3.65 = 10.5%
Rode my bike all over those Santa Monica Mountains. http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?S=10&T=1&X=1802&Y=18886&Z=11&W=1
Well, presuming you're a lifelong US resident, and are under 80 years old, then it's unlikely you have seen this before. The US has not had a giant real estate bubble and bust since the 1920s/30s. The early 90s saw a CA slump but they didn't have liar loans, 0% deposits, crazy ARMs and other funny money back then - this time it is worse. As for the dollar, I don't quite get your point - I've been short pounds (my home currency) and long dollars since early 2008 (from around 1.98), and shorted the Euro at 1.45. Just because someone asks you a question about your *timing*, does not mean they don't agree with your view - I readily admit you timed your entry better, but you chose an inferior currency to short it against (assuming you outright shorted currencies, rather than just cashing in and repatriating your FX to dollars), so overall I don't really see anything for you to bash or brag about there. Back to the subject, I stand by my call and am confident we will see lower real estate prices in CA in 2009 - let's pop back in December and we'll see how that turns out.
I agree with your entire post... except for the above. When you make such a statement, you come off as a stupid, ignorant person. Why do you do that? That comment wasn't even on topic.. we were talking about (1)"California State Income Tax", (2) whether or not they were "high", and (3) whether that was even relevant to the topic... (I'm not going to have the pleasure of reading your response... putting you on ignore... with the long list of other "fools not suffered gladly")
the 1990-1994+ period here (Socal) as not a "slump". im not trying to sidetrack the thread, but the RTC period was not simply a slump.
maybe a worthless question, but what is the sales tax rate in NYC... its 8.25% in the city i live - raised to pay off a $55M bond for a new City Hall.