Enough means being able to pay your bills by having no need of more than one job. Jesus, it used to be that women could raise our children, and now they have to work to make ends meet. Even that is not enough in most households. DO YOU GET WHAT ENOUGH MEANS NOW? The jobs numbers is a complete joke to me. It doesn't show if these are "contracting to hire" jobs (a new technique that corporations are using), it doesn't show if these jobs are $10/Hr jobs or $30 an hour jobs, etc. Without these metrics, the unemployment situation is a complete joke.
Corporate Tax Revenues Nearing Historic Lows As A Percentage Of GDP, Report Says Even as the federal deficit has ballooned, U.S. corporations are paying lower tax bills than ever before, according to one measure. That's the takeaway from a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities dissecting the tax structures of corporations, which CBPP Director Chuck Marr says are now paying taxes at "historical lows as a share of the [total] economy." Marr points to a basic discrepancy: While the U.S.'s top corporate tax rate of 35 percent is one of the highest in the world, the amount corporations actually end up forking over to the government is much lower, sometime as low as 4 percent. This is due to a dizzying number of deductions, write-offs, and other accounting tricks that allow corporations to legally reduce their tax burden. In 2007, the report notes, the Treasury estimated federal government had missed an opportunity to collect $1.2 trillion due to various corporate tax expenditures over the previous decade. As New York Times columnist David Leonhardt columnist recently put it, a company like General Electric is, indeed, "expert at avoiding taxes." Using statistics from the Office of Management and Budget, CBPP created this graph, mapping total collected corporate taxes as a percentage of the overall U.S. economy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...e_n_830361.html
Nitro, if a civilization exists long enough, the rich and the smart will always find a way to get richer and the poor will find ways to get poorer. Societies are the most equal at their infancy. Let's take school as an example. In kindergarten, everyone was an equal. There were no cool kids or artsy kids or rich kids, just kids. In elementary school, you started to see some separation from the smarter kids who picked up reading and math faster then some of the slower kids. In middle school you start to see the social landscape change. Girls start growing breasts, guys start playing JV sports. Some kids join the band. Cliques are formed. By high school the disparity gets really bad. Some kids are complete loners by then with no friends. Other kids have high social status. The cool car, nice clothes, captain of the football team. The smart kids are all taking AP classes. The dumb kids are on the verge of dropping out and working in fast food. So all these kids started out equal at the age of 5 or 6. But as they got older, separation happened. This is the same process in society and with civilizations in general. There really is not much you can do about it unless you move to a authoritarian government where society is "forced" to live a certain way.
Without these metrics, the unemployment situation is a complete joke. -------------------------------------------------------- That my friend I agree with. Those numbers are a complete joke. I know you have been trading as long as I was, or even longer. And I also know that you understand the US STOCK MARKET is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Propped up by QE1, 2, soon to be 3 and 4, etc. All GOV. data IMHO are lies. This is not being a conspiracy nut. I took the red pill and woke up, to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Texas, claims to have great employment numbers. But what they do not tell you is the average hourly wage in TEXAS, is around 9 bucks-10bucks. Some pay 11. The average college Grad makes under 40k in most of the State. But, there are serious industries here where you can make 100K plus a year. Most are in the Energy Sector, biomedical, and Logistics for global goods, and starting your own business. So, I agree with not only GOV DATA but Public Traded companies data with their 10Ks and earnings reports. Very skeptical. It's funny how many forgot about Arther Anderson.
There are two earnings spaces, leveraged or not leveraged. It is almost impossible to get rich in the wage (non-leveraged) space. They call wage income above 250K rich and you hit the higher tax at this low level, which works to keep the working man down. In the leverage space 250K is just barely getting started. Leverage by the way is not just financial. In fact that might be the least valuable kind. The best kinds are operational leverage and legal leverage. -business systems (franchise, pyramid businesses like law firms) -legal rights (IP, royalty income, licensing, etc) This is truly how you get government working for you and not against you. In the best businesses all the leverage types work together. "workers" employ no leverage at all and are not in the money game. That is how capitalism works. It is difficult to break into success in the leverage space but if you make it nothing is better.
Dude, you are seriously knowledgeable. There are maybe five people on ET that deserve to be read in matters of economics, and you are one of them.
and then you have the ..."show me a billionaire and i'll show you a crime" space... the actual quote may be different.
QE shovels money into the pockets of those in the leverage space, while the non-leverage space gets reduced purchasing power on their wages, pensions that buy less, insurance policies worth less, basically all fixed pmt "safe" middle class things computed in the accounting unit "dollar" get pilfered. Look at savings accounts and CD's, the typical middle class safe place to put money. The near zero rates really equal a 100% tax on saving's income. What act of congress passed a 98% tax on savings income? Oops, there was no law, it was the fed, which effectively taxes without representation. And of course this money is, as I said being funneled into the pockets of those on the other side in the financial sector. It is when the above situation gets even more extreme that revolutions and radicalism come to the forefront. We are presently a long way from that.
Wow Nitro, you must have dumped that girlfriend and come back to your senses! It's a recovery only if you're rich Of course, it's for the rich. Any of you think our "good" government "leaders" gives a damn about anybody else??? Wake up! P.S.---EMRGLOBAL, you been here four years. Do you realize there is a quote button you can use to provide clarity to your posts??
FerdinandAlx, edbreen, promethsus and psytrade are great reads when it comes to economics...sorry if i misspelled anyones name.