It's always the economy, stupid

therepublitarian:

Fair share!

“‘In 2011, 5,221 households had a tax rate of more than 100 percent on their revenues, Some 6,203 households had a rate of more than 85 percent and 6,343 house holds a rate of more than 75 percent,’ the newspaper said but households could take advantage of a ‘tax shield’ introduced by Sarkozy to cap an individual’s overall taxation at 50 percent of their income.”

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.

—Thomas Sowell

“The boom in share prices is confusing some analysts. The basic problem, as John Authers notes in the Financial Times, is that since September 2011, ‘global earnings per share have been flat.’

So what rising share prices suggest is that investors are willing to pay more for a given level of earnings. ‘Price/earnings multiples have gone from 12 to 16 in the process.’

In the City jargon, this is known as a ‘re-rating’. It suggests that investors are feeling upbeat about the future, and that they expect earnings growth to improve (because otherwise you wouldn’t be willing to pay an apparently high price for today’s earnings).

The trouble is, that might make sense if there was any hint that profits would soar in the foreseeable future. However, profit margins are already at record levels. If anything, you’d expect them to drop back closer to their historical average.

So what’s driving this enthusiasm for stocks? I’m sure you’ve already guessed:
quantitative easing.”

From Money Week

Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.

—Milton Friedman

With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.

—Friedrich A. Hayek

“For four years they have been climbing up and up – offering loans at negative interest rates, trying to encourage people to borrow and spend. They want people to part with their money, not save it. And they’ve also given the economy more money – QE 1, QE 2, and now QE 3. In the current version of quantitative easing (QE), they print up an extra $85bn a month and pump it into the banking system.

That money hasn’t done much for the real economy – the unemployment rate has gone down, but only because people have left the workforce – but it’s done wonders for stock prices. The Dow has more than doubled since ’09. It’s up this year too – hitting record after record.”

From Money Week

“There is a long history of presidents using the IRS against political enemies. FDR went after newspapers that opposed the New Deal. JFK had his Ideological Organizations Audit Project target conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute. Richard Nixon used the IRS to harass people on his enemies list.”

From the Wall Street Journal

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

—Friedrich A. Hayek

“‘I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here, saying to me, ‘Well, the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government,’ and I’ve always laughed at them,’ Morgan said. ‘I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Your government won’t turn itself on you. …

‘But, actually, this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government.’

He continued, ‘I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior. I think what the Department of Justice has done to the AP is bordering on tyrannical behavior.’”

From WND