The Independent

THE BLUEPRINT by WAYNE ALLYN ROOT , classmate Barach Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger gove...

HJTA, California Pension Reform Score a Major Victory for the Taxpayers Judge orders Orange County Employees Retirement System to turn over public records detailing public employee pensions SACRAMENTO --- Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (also known as “California Pension Reform”) have won a key victory in the battle against out-of-control pensions for state and local bureaucrats. A judge in Orange County has ordered the Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS) to turn over information on the lavish pensions of bureaucrats. OCERS must release the names, gross pension amounts, and the last employing agency from which the worker retired. “This is a great day for every taxpayer in the state of California who is fed up with subsidizing cushy retirement programs for government bureaucrats, and who wants to know the whole truth about what we’re paying for,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Associati...

By Jon Coupal For those who work in the private sector, the dream of enjoying  a comfortable retirement has become just that -- a dream. The impact of the recession continues to be brutal, especially on older workers. “More than seven-in-ten (72 percent) workers over the age of 60 who said they are putting off their retirement are doing so because they can’t afford to retire,” according to a recent survey by CareerBuilder.  In California, with unemployment and under employment totaling over 21 percent – only Michigan with its decaying auto industry is worse off – older people being forced to work longer may regard themselves as lucky just to have a job. This is not a concern for those who enjoy the job security of working for California government.  The highest paid public workers in all 50 states -- some of whom are able to retire as many 15 years earlier than the private sector average with pensions nearing full time-pay -- continue to be shie...

We learned Monday that the Central Planners have proposed a $3.8 trillion budget, with $2.0 trillion of tax increases, $1.0 trillion coming by increasing income taxes on families who earn more than $250,000. For those of you earning $250,000 in your families, which is about $125,000 after taxes using current tax rates, I ask you the question, are you rich? You are paying $1,200 a month in health insurance, paying $40,000 a year in college tuition with no scholarship help because you make too much money, and had 40 percent of your stock investments and 20 percent of your real estate investments wiped out the past three years. You pay three times as much in real estate taxes on the same home you lived in ten years ago. Are you rich? You work for a firm that could downsize or go bankrupt at any moment. Are you rich? Government tax revenues decline due to economic recession, and government spending increases because that is what Central Planners do under the guise of stimulating the econom...

"The government is spending money like it is going out of style," groans one justifiably disgruntled reader. "Part of reason is huge pay to government employees and corruption by Congress. "Data from Cato Institute of Federal Pay Vs Private (i.e. taxpayers) shows federal pay and benefits in 2008 of $119,982 vs. $59,909 private industry. Twice as high! And, the gap is growing fast. A decade ago, the average federal civilian employee earned 66% more in wages and benefits than the average private taxpayer. Today, it is double. In 2009 Federal Government budget for wages is up 3%, while private employees are losing their jobs and pay is being reduced. And, state and local town employees are paid about 35% more than private taxpayers. "Is that fair for taxpayers to be supporting Federal pay double their own?" the reader goes on to ask. "The federal employees are now the elite, upper class - like in Russia. It is the reason why Washington and s...

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled mass-amnesty legislation, once again highlighting their misguided and out-of-touch policies. Among its provisions, the bill would grant illegals—including their spouses and children—amnesty, thereby allowing them to work and travel freely within the United States and provide for eventual citizenship.  The legislation would also grant in-state college tuition and accelerate the amnesty process for illegals brought to the United States before the age of 16. Among its egregious worksite enforcement provisions, the bill repeals a program that permits local law enforcement to participate in carrying out our nation’s immigration laws and requires excessive mandates for worksite enforcement activities. With over 15 million Americans unemployed and seven million illegals employed, amnesty legislation is an affront to American citizens and legal residents. Congressman Miller believes firmly that it is wrong to award citizenship to those that hav...

Here is what we (us, our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids) owe... Only taxes can pay for these or a default by the US congress. When you're in a hole, stop digging. Congress has to go - they are the diggers! Throw all the incumbent bums out!   U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls (jobs) decreased by 11,000 in November -- the smallest decline since the recession began at the close of 2007. Today's chart puts that decline into perspective by comparing job losses during the current economic recession (solid red line) to that of the last recession (dashed gold line) and the average recession from 1950-2006 (dashed blue line). As today's chart illustrates, the current job market has suffered losses that are more than triple as much as what occurs at the lows of the average recession/job loss cycle.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that Housing Starts dropped a whopping 10.6 percent in the one month period October 2009 versus September 2009, and fell 30.7 percennt below an already awful number last October 2008. This is in spite of the $8,000 first time home buyers credit the Central Planners decided was a key stimulus tactic. New Building Permits fell 24.3 percent from last year's lousy October number. Mortgage Applications fell 2.5 percent last week. Clearly the Central Planners' stimulus plan is not working. The reason is simple, they have targeted a small minority to get the trillions of dollars of government spending, and have failed miserably in conducting a strategy that would get cash into the hands of all American Households. If you have a clunker and are willing to buy a tiny car with a certain gas mileage performance, if you are buying a new home for the first time, or if you are one of the largest financial companies on earth, you get the money, and...

First time unemployment topped 10% for the first time since 1983 (see chart below courtesy chartoftheday.com), well above the Administration’s peak estimate of 8.5% they projected in February. Temporary employment, typically a leading indicator of hiring, rose for the third straight month, increasing 33.7K in October. Without that increase the employment picture would have been significantly weaker. Unofficial estimates of the “underemployed”, i.e. those wishing to be employed full time but unable to obtain employment, rose 1% to 17.5%. The second chart below, courtesy of Barry Ritholtz, shows the number of unemployed longer than 27 weeks, dating back to 1948. Even if the economy stabilizes and hiring moves back into a 150K-200K per month range, it could take 3-5 years to achieve prior levels of employment.

As most working taxpayers will soon realize, beginning November 1st, the state increased withholding by 10%. Officials are saying that this is not a tax increase because at tax time you will owe no more that before the increase. Wrong! It is a tax increase because all withholding is borrowing money from taxpayers without paying interest, and an increase in withholding is borrowing more money without paying interest. The result is more money for government and less for taxpayers, which to reasonable people is a tax increase. Many taxpayers declare fewer dependents than the number to which they are legally entitled to assure that their tax liability is fully covered. If you are in that category, you have the ability to counter this grab for more of your money by changing the number of dependents you declare. However, it is always a good idea to consult with your tax preparer first, before making a change. To change the number of dependents you declare, you will need to fill out a DE-4 fo...

Paul B. Farrell Oct. 20, 2009, 8:08 a.m. EDT Death of 'Soul of Capitalism:' Bogle, Faber, Moore By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Jack Bogle published "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" four years ago. The battle's over. The sequel should be titled: "Capitalism Died a Lost Soul." Worse, we've lost "America's Soul." And worldwide the consequences will be catastrophic. That's why a man like Hong Kong's contrarian economist Marc Faber warns in his Doom, Boom & Gloom Report: "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today." No, not just another meltdown, another bear market recession like the one recently triggered by Wall Street's "too-greedy-to-fail" banks. Faber is warning that the entire system of capitalism will collapse. Get it? The engine driving the great "American Economic Empire" f...

Robert McHugh, Ph.D. The Labor Department reported Friday that Unemployment for September rose to 9.8 percent. One out of ten Americans who are seeking work, are out of work. If laid off full time workers settling for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate in the U.S. is now up to 17 percent. If we include discouraged workers who are no longer seeking employment (they are not included in the Labor Department's unemployment figures), then the unemployment figures rise to 10.1 percent and 17.3 percent. The problem is getting worse, and evolving into a crisis of Family Household income. Consumers account for 70 percent of all spending, of GDP. The Labor Department reported Friday that 263,000 more people lost jobs in September, non-farm payroll job losses, but actually the number was even worse than reported because the Labor Department reduced the actual number of job losses by "let's pretend" jobs that they imagined in their deepest melatonin dreams wer...