Friday, August 17, 2012

1.2 Billion rounds of ammo purchased by DHS. Why? some have said for training purposes, but that doesn't even count for 1% Now the disinformation campaign. Government trying to explain why SS admin needs 170,000 rounds. While ignoring the 1.2 Billion in purchases. Now purchase orders are being redacted with quantities removed. That's illegal.

Test, test, test...................

Holy Cow, can it be true? I finally figured out how to post somewhere other than MW and e-mail! It's almost embarrassing since the "old farts" figured it out quicker than me!

The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009

July 10, 2012

Updated: On August 10, 2012, the supplemental data spreadsheet was reposted with a correction (in Table 5, to the 2009 value for market income, adjusted for household size), along with a few explanatory notes (to Tables 5, 9, and 13).
The recent recession has had a substantial impact on income, the amount of taxes owed, and average tax rates. Changes in households’ before-tax income and average tax rates in 2008 and 2009 were substantial and differed markedly across the income distribution. Average after-tax income fell notably, owing to a drop in market income caused by the recession that began in December 2007 that was only partially offset by increases in government transfers and decreases in federal taxes.
In this report CBO extends its estimates of the distribution of household income and federal taxes through 2008 and 2009, the latest year for which comprehensive data are available, and compares those estimates with estimates for 2007 and for the 1979–2009 period.

Average Before-Tax Income for All Households Fell 12 Percent from 2007 to 2009 in Real (Inflation-Adjusted) Terms

In 2009, the shares of total before-tax income (which includes government transfer payments, such as Social Security benefits) received by households in certain income quintiles were:

Lowest quintile: 5.1 percent
Middle quintile: 14.7 percent
Highest quintile: 50.8 percent

(Each quintile contains one-fifth of the population, ranked by household income adjusted for household size as described in the report.)
Average before-tax income fell between 2007 and 2009 for households in all income quintiles, but the amount of that decline varied by quintile. The declines in before-tax income were 5 percent or less for households in each of the four lowest income quintiles and 18 percent for households in the top quintile. For households in the top one percent, income fell by 36 percent, reducing their share of before-tax income from 18.7 percent to 13.4 percent.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373

Election '12 vs. Election '08 Four Years Ago Today

2012 vs. 2008 · Four Years Ago Today · 2012 vs. 2004 · Eight Years Ago Today

August 17, 2012
47.3 Obama 43.8 Romney	SpreadObama +3.5

August 17, 2008
45.2 Obama 42.0 McCain	SpreadObama +3.2

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Obama campaign says five years of Romney returns is enough

The Obama campaign is calling on Mitt Romney to release five years of his tax returns, and promises it will end its criticism on the issue if Romney does so.
The latest chapter in the tax battle came in a letter from Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, who made the offer.
"Gov. Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide," Messina wrote to Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades. "So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: If the governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244063-obama-camp-promises-5-years-is-enough-on-romney-tax-returns-

Economic Outlook Drops To Lowest Of The Year As Inflation Expectations Surge

University of Michigan Consumer Confidence came modestly higher than expected and limped higher off the lowest levels of the year. However, aside from this apparently positive event (accoding to some media pundits), there are two worrying things shifting rapidly. Consumer outlook for the economy (as opposed to current conditions) dropped to their lowest of the year with the largest 3-month drop in 11 months (so much for hope?); and inflation expectations soared by the most in 17 months.
Consumer's outlook for the economy is plunging...

while their expectations of inflation are soaring...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/economic-outlook-drops-lowest-year-inflation-expectations-surge

Natural Gas And The Brutal Dethroning Of King Coal

Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
It’s been tough for natural gas drillers. The boom in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that gave access to enormous gas-rich shale formations around the nation led to record production. Prices crashed. Drilling activity collapsed: rig count, down 45% from last year, hit the lowest level since July 1999. Producers are writing down their natural gas assets by the billions of dollars. Some will get wiped out. The price of natural gas has been below production costs for years, and the damage is now huge [read.... Natural Gas: Where Endless Money Went to Die].
On the other side, power generators have switched from coal to natural gas—with devastating impact on king coal. Coal has long been the dominant fuel for power generation. But April 2012, for the first time in the history of EIA data, power generation from coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants reached parity, each contributing 32% to total electricity generation.

The large fluctuations are a function, in part, of the seasonality of overall power demand. In April, demand was low due to mild spring weather. The price of natural gas dropped to a 10-year low, and power companies laughed all the way to the bank. In May, power production started to rise as air conditioners got cranked up—a trend that will hold for the summer.
But the graph shows something far more important: a narrowing of the gap between coal and gas-fired power generation. It’s not just the low price of natural gas that did it—but a new power generation technology and yes, the usual suspect, Congress.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-16/natural-gas-and-brutal-dethroning-king-coal

Can we balance the budget???

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government this year is spending almost $3.5 trillion. Tax receipts are estimated to be less than $2.2 trillion, which means a projected deficit of about $1.35 trillion.

So can we balance the budget when there is that much red ink? And is it possible to eliminate deficits while also extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts?

The answer is yes. One approach would be to get rid of counterproductive forms of spending such as the Department of Agriculture, energy-subsidy programs, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Small Business Administration, Department of Education, National Endowment for the Arts, and Department of Transportation. In other words, embrace the tea-party agenda and get rid of programs, agencies, and departments that don't mesh with the Founding Fathers' vision of a limited federal government.

Balancing the budget is not difficult. Getting rid of red ink is easily achievable with fiscal restraint.

For much of America's history, when such restraints were honored, federal spending was on average only 3 percent of economic output. If we did the same thing today, federal spending would be about $450 billion. We'd not only have a balanced budget; we'd have a giant surplus and could easily afford to abolish the income tax.

But while radical downsizing of the federal government would be desirable, the budget could be balanced with much more modest forms of fiscal restraint. Indeed, there's no need to cut spending. Politicians simply need to reduce the rate at which spending is growing.

It's a simple matter of mathematics. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that tax revenue will grow by an average of 7.3 percent annually over the next 10 years. Reducing the budget deficit is easy — so long as politicians increase overall spending by less than that amount. And with inflation projected to be about 2 percent over the same period, this is an ideal environment for some long-overdue fiscal discipline.

If spending is simply capped at the current level with a hard freeze, the budget is balanced by 2016. If we limit spending growth to 1 percent each year, the budget is balanced in 2017. And if we allow 2 percent annual spending growth — letting the budget keep pace with inflation, the budget balances in 2020.

Gunmen Have Attacked And Entered Kamra Air Base In Pakistan, Thought To House Nuclear Weapons - Business Insider

Gunmen Have Attacked And Entered A Pakistani Air Force Base Thought To House Nuclear Weapons

Adam Taylor | Aug. 15, 2012, 7:47 PM

discusspakistan.com

Gunmen have attacked and entered a Pakistan air force base, according to Reuters.
The target is the Minhas Air Base in the town of Kamra, located around 40 miles outside Islamabad. The attacked is believed to be conducted by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — reports in the Pakistan press have suggested they were planning attacks in retaliation for upcoming military action.
A three hour gun battle is reportedly raging between security guards and attackers.
Time Magazine's Omar Waraich points out that this is the third attack on the base since 2007.
Worryingly, the militants may have good reason to attack the base. Waraich says that the site is home of Pakistan's nascent drone program, and a Telegraph report from 2009 said the site was thought to house Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Saeed Shah wrote at the time:

Pakistan’s nuclear sites are tightly guarded. While experts do not think that terrorists could seize an actual nuclear bomb — the weapons are not kept in a useable form, with parts dispersed — it is possible that they could cause a fire or explosion inside a nuclear site, or perhaps seize radioactive material.

UPDATE: 2 soldiers and 6 militants have been left dead from the fighting, Reuters reports.