Commentary
Tax Cuts for the Good Guys
Written by Laurence M. Vance
Speaking on one of the political television shows before the election, Vice President Joe Biden proposed to make a deal with Republicans on tax increases. Democrats, who just raised the Medicare tax by 0.9 percent on those earning over $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers), want to increase their political capital by making the Bush tax cuts — due to expire this year — permanent. The sticking point is the $250,000 threshold at which Democrats want “the rich” to begin to pay higher tax rates. Biden said the Obama administration was willing to consider raising the threshold. “I don’t have any problem with wealthy people getting a tax cut. I mean, for real,” Biden explained. “I mean, these are good guys.”
World Bank’s Trial Balloon Pops
Written by Bob Adelmann
Before the Internet, Robert Zoellick’s brief outline of suggested topics for the G20 meeting this week in Seoul, Korea, might have been considered just an interoffice memo. It appeared in London’s Financial Times, contained obscure references to arcane subjects that would be of interest only to international bankers determined to push their agenda for a world currency, and was written by a certified member of the internationalist “insider” cabal. But when Zoellick wrote that the “cooperative monetary system … should also consider employing gold as an international reference point…,” Internet bloggers picked up on it immediately, and the cover was blown.
Even though 151,000 new real jobs were added in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate stayed at 9.6 percent. This announcement not only successfully masked the fact that fewer people were looking for work, which made the rate look better, but also that more people are staying unemployed longer.
John Allison: Free Market Banker
Written by Bob Adelmann
When asked during an “Online with Terry Jeffrey” interview about how to solve the debt crisis facing the country, former Branch Banking & Trust (BB&T) CEO John Allison, was direct:
Fed Celebrates Its 100th Birthday
Written by Bob Adelmann
In a remarkable show of both contempt and hubris, the Federal Reserve System announced that it will be celebrating its 100th birthday at exactly the same place where it secretly started, in Jekyll Island, Georgia.
