Saturday Movie Matinee: Cliff Talk

Peter Schiff: Debt Ceiling & the Fiscal Cliff:

President Obama wants to make it easier for our nation to go deeper into debt supposedly to convince bondholders that we are serious about paying our bills. Of course, we can only “pay”our bills if bondholders loan us the money to necessary to make the payments . In other words, we “pay” them back using their own money, going even deeper into debt in the process. How much longer can this Ponzi scheme continue now that we have alerted the victims to the nature of the scam?

Peter Schiff: Many Other Cliffs Await the US Economy – CNBC 12/05/2012:

Peter Schiff, CEO, Euro Pacific Capital says the U.S. economy may need to go over this fiscal cliff and address some structural issues, or face other cliffs on multiple fronts if this imminent one is avoided.

Steven Crowder: FISCAL CLIFF, OH NOES!!:

Charles Krauthammer on Special Report:The President Wants to Create a “Civil War” in the House…

World News: Power Play 12 6 2012: Obama’s fiscal cliff power play with Chris Stirewalt:

SEE ALSO:

Peter Schiff, WSJ: The Fantasy of a 91% Top Income Tax Rate:

The tax code of the 1950s allowed upper-income Americans to take exemptions and deductions that are unheard of today. Tax shelters were widespread, and not just for the superrich. The working wealthy—including doctors, lawyers, business owners and executives—were versed in the art of creating losses to lower their tax exposure.

For instance, a doctor who earned $50,000 through his medical practice could reduce his taxable income to zero with $50,000 in paper losses or depreciation from property he owned through a real-estate investment partnership. Huge numbers of professionals signed up for all kinds of money-losing schemes. Today, a corresponding doctor earning $500,000 can deduct a maximum of $3,000 from his taxable income, no matter how large the loss.

Those 1950s gambits lowered tax liabilities but dissuaded individuals from engaging in the more beneficial activities of increasing their incomes and expanding their businesses. As a result, they were a net drag on the economy. When Ronald Reagan finally lowered rates in the 1980s, he did so in exchange for scrapping uneconomical deductions. When business owners stopped trying to figure out how to lose money, the economy boomed.

It’s hard to determine how much otherwise taxable income disappeared through tax shelters in the 1950s. As a result, direct comparisons between the 1950s and now are difficult. However, it is worth noting that from 1958 to 2010, the taxes paid by the top 3% of earners, as a percentage of total personal income (which can’t be reduced by shelters), increased to 3.96% from 2.72%, while the percentage paid by the bottom two-thirds of filers fell to 0.51% in 2010 from 2.7%. This starker division of relative tax burdens can be explained by the inability of upper-income groups to shelter income.

It is a testament to the shallow nature of the national economic conversation that higher tax rates can be justified by reference to a fantasy—a 91% marginal rate that hardly any top earners paid.

Washington Post Business: What going over the ‘fiscal cliff’ would mean . . .

Rick Santelli Explodes At CNBC Panelist Walks Off Camera – ‘I Can’t Even Talk About it!”:

PJTV’s Trifecta discussed the story that made Santelli’s head explode…

PJTV: Hypocrisy In Bulk: Former Costco CEO Cheerleads for Obama, Then Dodges Taxes:

The rich aren’t paying their fair share! That’s not just the mantra of Occupy Wall Street, even some executives are singing that tune. One of those executives is co-founder and former CEO of Costco Jim Sinegal. Sinegal lambasted the rich at the Democratic National Convention, then maneuvered to avoid paying taxes. Find out all about it on this episode of Trifecta.

Lee Doren, Tax the Rich, The Critique:

Pethokoukis: November Jobs Report: Another nasty, ‘new normal’ month for US workers:

The more you drill down into the November jobs report, the worse it looks. On the surface, not so bad. Nonfarm employment increased by 146,000 jobs last month, beating expectations of around 93,000. What’s more, the jobless rate fell to 7.7%, the lowest since December 2008, versus expectations of 7.9%. And the broader U-6 rate — taking into account some discouraged workers and the underemployed — fell to 14.4% from 14.6%. Private sector jobs rose by 147,000.

But those numbers, unfortunately, are only part of the story. As Citigroup notes this morning, “Far more robust monthly averages than 150,000 jobs per month would be needed for a true restoration of normal labor markets.” Here’s why:

1. The two-tenths drop in the unemployment rate was because people gave up looking for work. The labor force participation rate fell to 63.6% from 63.8% in October. If it had just held steady since then, the unemployment rate would be back over 8%. Indeed, if the LFP rate was just where it was in November 2011, the unemployment rate would be 8.3%. Some 542,000 Americans left the labor force just last month.

2. If labor force participation was at its January 2009 level, the unemployment rate would be a whopping 10.7%. Now, some of the drop in the LFP is due to demographic reasons, primarily the aging of the US population. But even taking that into account would give you a much higher unemployment rate than 7.7%. If you go by the pre-recession CBO forecast of the 2012 LFP rate, the unemployment rate would be 10.4%.

Mark Levin: Capitalism Works. But When You Have A Marxist In The White House…

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Jon Gabriel: The Message of Welfare: ‘No, You Can’t’:

Nearly all Americans are eager to help the least fortunate, if not with ever more byzantine bureaucracies then with acts of personal charity. But how long will Americans retain their giving heart if the state continues to punish them for doing the right thing?

Pennsylvania’s secretary of public welfare recently exposed a shocking fact about our accelerating welfare state. Once you add in the various welfare programs, a single mom is financially better off earning just $29,000 at a job than earning $69,000. How is this possible? The lower salary makes her eligible for all kinds of government programs that just aren’t available at the higher salary. Washington is telling her that the less she does, the more she’ll be rewarded.

We are edging ever closer to a social tipping point. If getting money you didn’t earn leads to learned helplessness, imagine the damage inflicted by the strong financial encouragement not to work at all? It can’t be long until many hard-working Americans realize that it actually hurts them and their children to strive for greater professional success.

Traditionally in America, a great way to get ahead was to attend night school, pull extra hours on the weekend, and study your craft in the off-hours. It worked for me and millions of others. But the new lesson from our government is that the surest pathway to success is to stop trying so hard and just enjoy the ride.

Even blue-state welfare officials are realizing that government social programs simply don’t add up. An important step, but all of us must understand that this problem ultimately isn’t one of math, but of morality. The only way to fix the balance sheets of Washington and the lives of struggling Americans is to replace food stamps with earned paychecks.

The Powers That Be: Lord Christopher Monckton Demonstrates How to Get Kicked Out of a UN Climate Change Conference in 20 Words or Less:

Lord Christopher Monckton, former adviser to Margaret Thatcher and current thorn in the side of global warming alarmists everywhere who seek to line their pockets by peddling false or wildly over-exaggerated fears (e.g. the UN), infiltrated the UN climate conference being held in Qatar. He managed to utter one sentence before experiencing a rapid eviction:

After the news conference, and as diplomats gathered for the climate conference president’s assessment of how close countries are to agreement, Monckton quietly slipped into the seat reserved for the delegation of Myanmar and clicked the button to speak.

“In the 16 years we have been coming to these conferences, there has been no global warming,” Monckton said as confused murmurs filled the hall and then turned into a chorus of boos.

The stunt infuriated negotiators and activists here who gather every year to address what they believe is one of the world’s top threats, the steady rise of man-made global warming.

Lord Monckton at Doha climate talks pretending to be Myanmar: