A Mattress is Starting to Look Safer
At least when it comes to keeping your money.
Cypriot ministers rushed on Monday to revise a plan to seize money from bank deposits as part of an EU bailout, in an effort to ensure lawmakers supported it in a vote later in the day.
The weekend announcement that Cyprus would impose a tax on bank accounts as part of a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout broke with previous practice that depositors’ savings were sacrosanct and sent a shiver across the bloc, causing the euro to tumble and stock markets to dive.
In case you are wondering why, it turns out that Cyprus is the Russian’s Switzerland as far as bank accounts go. Not only is the island a haven for gun running and drug dealing for the *ahem* Cyrillic Mafia, the wealthy use the Cypriot banks to facilitate their business. But in order to “tax” the wealthy Russians, the government has to tax every bank account to “make it seem fair”.
Needless to say, Vladimir Putin is very, very angry. Moscow was set to extend a 2.5€ billion loan to help the island in view of how Russians do use their banking system. Now, that extension may be jeopardized, and that can actually push the Cypriot parliament to “tax” the bank accounts.
It’s a viscous circle. Yes, viscous.
But hey, that can never happen here, right?
NY Has Its Bloomies in a Wad
Apparently, they are sick of this crap.
A new poll finds that 47 percent of New Yorkers say they are worse off financially than they were four years ago, compared to 37 percent who say their finances have improved.
Before y’all think they are waking up from the stupor, think again.
The Siena College poll released on Friday also found that 68 percent of New York state residents support raising the federal income tax for high earners.
And yet they do NOT understand why the wealthy are leaving New York in droves for places like Florida and Texas. But still, it is a small step, and I do have hope that someday the wonderful people of New York State will wake up to the fact that government is squashing them like cockroaches trying to drink a Big Slurp™.
Yes, that’s in New York City. No bets as to how long it stays up. However, the fact that it actually WAS put up should be cause for celebration, especially in that liberal hellhole city.
A word of advice? Start with removing the tin pot dictator y’all have as a mayor. The rest will fall into place 
Reach Arounds Are Extra
Riding the wave of the Occupy Fill-in-the-Blank protesting 1% of something, two lawmakers will introduce bills to tax financial transactions, following a proposal introduced in the European Union.
Because you know, taxation is working so well over there.
Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, and Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, will introduce the bills tomorrow in their respective chambers. The bills will give the United States an increased role in the international debate over a transaction tax, which is likely to be discussed at the Group of 20 summit this week in Cannes, France.
Yes, the same Cannes where Sarkozy is fighting to keep from unravelling due to Greece’s sudden demands for a popular vote over their financial rescue by the rest of the European Union members. Europe would love this tax bill here, which in turn would add global capital for use in undertermined ways. And by “undetermined”, I mean bailouts. Who controls global capital again?
But don’t worry. It wouldn’t be as high as the EU proposal of .1% of stock and bond trades. It would only be a rate of .03%. And in case you needed more reassurances, Senator Harkin delivers.
“It’s a significant way to raise some needed revenue,” Harkin said in an interview today in Washington. “Quite frankly, I bet nobody would even feel it.”
No one that actually doesn’t pay taxes. It never ceases to amaze me how a tax hike is permanent, but a tax cut is temporary.
Sometimes the best disinfectant is napalm.
Monday Facepalm
A friend of mine from way back in high school posted this on Fecesbook*:
The United States has become a country where the chasm between the rich and the poor has grown to enormous proportions. We should be one of the most progressive countries, given our commitment to freedom and democracy and the kind of talent and invention we’ve nurtured here. But we are not. Warren Buffett’s idea makes sense, but the so-called conservative media is trying to spin it as a statement of “socialism” and “class warfare.” It’s ridiculous when the top 1% can convince the other 99% that making sure the 1% is doing better all the time and keeping the others down is good for everyone. It’s called “feudalism” and “oligarchy.”
And then he has a link to this, asking people to sign:
I didn’t reply to his post. I stay out of my liberal friends’ posts. They are way past the point of saving, and I have better things to do with my time, like wash my hair. I did find it surprising par for the course that not once did my friend bring up the fact that Buffett can donate any amount of money, at any time, to the Treasury. He has no idea to whom the term “super rich” refers. To him, they are evil incarnate who as he claims, “keep the 99% down”. The same inventors and talent he was praising like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey and Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg and Abigail Johnson and Leona M. Helmsley (relation, but not the bitch from hell) and Ruth Parasol and T. Boone Pickens and fucking Warren himself are the eeevul 1%. The same 1% that provide jobs and services so that the rest of the 99% can move on up to the East Side!!!
I was tempted to reply. But I know him, and he is a true “citizen of the world”, who thinks the UN is the greatest beneficiary known to Mankind. He’s beyond hopeless. He still hasn’t made the connection between the evul mentioned above, and the fact that they contribute mostly to the Democrats. But considering he makes a living playing his violin at local joints, I’m not surprised.
*We all know what I mean, and my term is far more apt
The Turn of the Screw
Sometimes, you get so much Shadenfreude, it’s almost like going on a chocolate binge after dieting for a month. Take the latest from the city of New York:
CITY TAKES AIM AT RICH, FAMOUS LIKE ALEC BALDWIN, DEREK JETER, WHO MAY BE FIBBING ON WHERE THEY LIVE
That headline alone is worth bathing in pudding, no? Now, as much as I enjoy Alec Baldwin being given a colonoscopy of an audit, the underlining issue here is the fact that the city needs more revenue, because the wealthy have fled the astronomical taxes imposed by it.
Facing shrinking revenue, the state has ramped up its pursuit of suspected tax dodgers, hiring 189 new auditors and -- for the first time -- making filers swear under oath on tax forms as to how many days they “spend in New York City.”
Sayeth Baldwin the Sage*, “The moment you start working regularly [in New York City], the city finance people come after you.” Gee, Alec, how many TV shows are based in The Big Apple? It is no wonder Derek Jeter settled quietly and sold his home, choosing to live out of the city. Easy peasy prediction: more wealthy New Yorkers will flee, forcing the city to raise taxes yet again. This is like the Circle of Life, only not as pleasant.
* In case y’all didn’t catch it, that was sarcasm
Hat tip: JAM2
Don’t Leave Home Without It!
If you’d like to give one of these cards a test run, here’s how it works: If you make under $250,000 and find yourself facing any of the new taxes highlighted by ATR (“Tax on Indoor Tanning Services,” “Medicine Cabinet Tax,” “Special Needs Kids Tax,” etc.), you present the card and, if challenged “politely ask, ‘Excuse me, but are you calling President Obama a liar?’”
No guarantees, of course.
From Politico, via Americans for Tax Reform.
Texas vs California
Stolen from here.
Black lines show inbound, red lines show outbound.
Two things I take from these images. First, I really wish those Yankee mother fuckers from New England would quit moving to Houston. Second, as many people fleeing LA you’d think it was on fire.
Punishment via Taxes
I was reading this over at AIR.
First: Punish something and you get less of it. Let’s be more specific: Tax the everloving shit out of people who make money, and their incentive to make more money will drop. Either that or they’ll take their money and leave. It really isn’t all that hard to understand, even though we freely admit that grokking it doesn’t provide you with quite the same level of masturbatory pleasure that being able to say “I voted for the first black president” gets you. If you’re as shallow as a dish and dumber than a Barbara Boxer of Rocks, that is.
Here’s the thing I don’t get. The left has no problem figuring that taxing tobacco makes people stop smoking, and they understand that higher taxes on junk food makes people stop buying the stuff. Yet when you suggest that higher taxes on making money would make people stop making money …. you get a look like you just told them that the universe does not, in fact, revolve around BHO.
PS: I also noticed they need to fix their mod_rewrite settings.
Politician dodges his own taxes
From The Boston Herald via Red State:
A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car -- adorned with his State House license plate -- in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned.
So this cocksucker votes to raise liquor taxes and then drives his publicly owned car over state lines to buy booze in an effort to avoid the taxes he helped put into place.
Its been 4 months since I quit smoking
I would probably kill you for a smoke.
The dangers of cigarettes below the fold.
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