Thom: more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Ann Telnaes: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Drone.
Ed: Voter fraud is perpetuated by Republicans.
Aqua Buddha Filibuster:
- Jon: “What the who?”
- O’Donnell: What Cukoo Sen. Paul said during his filibuster.
- Young Turks: Rand Paul—winner or loser?
- Sam Seder: Like a broken clock, Rand Paul is right on drones
- O’Donnell: Paul’s empty headed stunt filled with infantile fantasies.
- Rand Paul’s filibuster in 2 minutes.
- Young Turks: Rand Paul’s filibuster angers the establishment.
Thom with The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Do Republicans even care about how sequester cuts affect people?
Maddow: Republicans scapegoat MSNBC for their 2012 failures:
Young Turks: U.S. sponsored death squads in Iraq.
Bill-O The Clown Bizarre Melt-Down:
- Sam Seder: Bill-O the Clown has a melt down.
- Maddow: Bill-O rules for anger management.
- Ed: Bill-O’s body language.
- Bill-O flips his lid on Alan Colmes
- Young Turks: Bill-O the Clown freak-out.
- Sharpton: Bill-O apologizes for his meltdown.
Sharpton: Jomes O’Keefe to pay $100K for his false ACORN smears.
A Twitter conversation with Sarah Palin.
White House: West Wing Week.
Voting Rights Act:
- Jon on The end of racism.
- Mark Fiore: All in the Scalia.
- Stephen on Scalia’s voting right act defense.
Maddow: Rare terrorist suspect arrest.
Young Turks: Florida Gov. Rick Scott admits he was wrong and Obama was right.
Red State Update: Obama will suck you into the ground.
President Jeb:
- Young Turks: Jeb Bush disagrees with himself.
- Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: More Bush!
Maddow: Obama invites a pack of hyenas to dinner.
Ed: The world according to Cheney.
#GOPSequester: Defenseless.
Ed: Obama signs VAWA.
O’Donnell: Hillary Clinton leads everyone for 2016.
Liberal Viewer: Can Republicans steal marijuana issue?.
Romney Resurfaces:
- ONN: Mitt Romney blames his loss on successfully communicating his message to minorities.
- Ann Telnaes: Ann Romney reflects on the election loss.
Sam Seder: Jeb Bush snakes his way to 2016.
Will DeGra: Mississippi and the 13th Amendment:
Stephen on Obama’s outrageous record on Israel.
Maddow: Big tobacco’s disinformation strategy.
Ann Telnaes: Dow closes at an all time high.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Puddy is amazed how many HA libtard pinheads became neo-cons these past few weeks. Nary a peep on Obummer’s proposed American citizen on American soil drone strikes without due process.
Then Obummer is trying an enemy combatant (Bin Ladin’s son-in-law) in an American court. So he can take the 5th Amendment in court. Golly this is a real comedy of errors and da perfessa doesn’t even cover it.
Sure is telling how hypocritical you morons are!
Dow closes at all time high with the Fed Chairman continuing to pour newly printed debt money into the stock market. Golly Puddy thought you morons were anti-wall street.
Oh yeah your clowns are leading the way so it’s A-OK!
Puddy wondered why this description of the media reaction of Ann Romney’s conversation with Chris Wallace wasn’t used. Oh yeah Mediaite is libtard so Puddy knows why. It wasn’t blistering enough and it was objective.
Puddy calls it…
Watch the ad hominem attacks from the stupid appear later this morning.
Where is the HA coverage of the Seattle contingent heading to Venezuela to mourn the loss of Hugo Chavez? Jesse Hi-Jackson leading a contingent. Sure is amazing how the left coddles dictators like Chavez and claim he was he next great thing just after sliced bread.
Well he did say it smelled of sulfur in Copenhagen in 2009. Oopsie.. he was talking about Obummer!
@1 We don’t worry about Obama because, unlike his predecessor, he doesn’t actually kill innocent people.
@2 “Golly Puddy thought you morons were anti-wall street.”
What gave you that idea? I made another $2500 of Monopoly Money today.
@5 He didn’t kill innocent people, either. At least, not as many as you guys did.
Piksa has been a parks-department employee since 1986. She is an assistant coordinator for community centers, and worked at several of them around the city, including Miller Community Center and Montlake Community Center, according to city records.
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....ngxml.html
So, she’s a community organizer.
Just sayin’.
Ann Telnaes: Dow closes at an all time high.
Catch this line, to the right of the video in the link:
Mar. 5, 2013
But the sun still isn’t shining on the unemployed.
Ann Telnaes/ The Washington Post
Yeah, I’m really not all that upset that Romney lost. Companies hoarding assets and buying back stock – see Citigroup’s announcement yesterday, not to mention Apple’s pile o’ cash sitting overseas – pushes up stock prices. JPM, C, AIG, WFC all doing quite well. But that doesn’t help people out there in need of a job.
This is what y’all voted for, right?
@1 Uncle Puddles – you ignorant troll! Welcome back!
Well, those of us with our free Obama iPhones got the message he’s coming for your, so more free stuff for us.
Also too, Benghazi! and Fast & Furious! and Solyndra!
@10 Kap’n Kornflake – Serial RENEGER,
Yeah, you did not meet the obligation on the wager you lost to me blabbering Rmoney would win. You’re a lying cheating reneging Republican half-wit. Of course you’re not upset.
Puffy – whats the difference between the police killing a untried criminal versus drones? So much hypocrisy with the drones.
Puffy smells.
Yawwwwnnnn.. These trolls are really boring this morning.
It takes a long time in war for closure for families. We still have unidentified remains, and people listed as missing, from the Civil War. Yesterday, two unidentified sailors, whose remains were found aboard the wreck of the USS Monitor in 2002, were laid to rest with full military honors, at Arlington National Cemetery.
http://articles.baltimoresun.c.....nclad-ship
Descendants of the 16 sailors who died aboard the Monitor were there, these two who were buried, could be one of their relative. Today, when people join the Armed Forces, they put a DNA Sample on file, but in the Civil War, DNA was a Century or more away from being discovered, and Dog Tags were still a half-century or more away from being issued.
@ 16
DNA specimens might be a little less useful if there’s a lot of historic clannish intramarrying.
One of my favorite jokes is
Kentucky: Five million people. Fifteen last names.
Q: What does a young Southern girl say after sex?
A: Git off me, Daddy, yer crushin’ ma smokes.
@18 Kap’n Kornflake – Serial RENEGER with fantasies of pedophilia,
Seek help asshole.
History: Jackie Robinson Telegrams LBJ
Jackie had a pair larger than any racist ever dreamed of having.
What Republican Politicians are fighting for. And what misguided Republicans are fighting for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....KKQnijnsM#!
But, let’s not let that get in the way of “Real America” telling the rest of us how we ought to live…
Can men be taught not to rape?
Kap’n Kornflake & Uncle Puddles, have you any ‘conservative’ words of discouragement for the rape victim, Zerlina Maxwell?
@17,
Really now, is that any way to talk about your fellow GOP brethren?
Again, I have to ask, does it ever bother you that these people are the primary reason your party exists at all anymore?
@9 She was a community organizer. From now on, she’s going to be a kitchen helper or laundry worker.
@9 (continued) “Just sayin’.”
Yep, you wingers have always loved playing the guilt-by-association game. OTOH, when someone says you’re as stupid as a fencepost, that has some validity.
@15 “These trolls are really boring this morning.”
Aren’t they always? This blog has lousy trolls. We’re almost better off without them.
@17 You said it, we didn’t. Did you hear the one about the guy from Arkansas who complained he’s been married three times and still has the same in-laws?
Guns – An American’s Best Friend.
http://todayentertainment.toda.....icide?lite
@18 Is that the same Daddy who yelled at his 14-year-old daughter for smoking at the dinner table because it sets a bad example for her kids?
@19 not to mention incest
@24 – Address them as Dumb and the Dumber.
@21 If only it was just Republicans perpetuating this state of affairs. The sad reality is that most Democrats in Congress are wealthy, too, and also protect the special prerogatives of — you guessed it! — the wealthy. That’s how we got to where we are under Republican and Democratic administrations and congresses alike. No one in our political system speaks for the poor or middle class, beyond offering lip service in exchange for votes.
So what happens if Seattle commits to a $490,000,000 basketball palace, and the guy trying to buy the team goes broke?
http://seattletimes.com/html/b.....rmxml.html
Did you hear the story about the woman who managed to fend off a grizzly bear attack with just a .25 caliber pistol? She shot her boyfriend, who was with her when the grizzly attacked, in the knee, and she was able to escape by walking away at a brisk pace as the grizzly devoured her boyfriend!
Hedge fund managers like Chris Hansen typically pay themselves 2% of assets under management plus 20% of profits. This means Hansen, with $2.8 billion in his fund, draws a paycheck of $56 million a year even if his fund earns nothing. If the fund earns a 2% return, which you can get risk-free by sitting on Treasuries, he gets another $11.2 million. $67 million a year is nice pay for doing absolutely nothing. Wish I could get a job like that.
The problem is, his employers won’t keep paying him to lose their money forever, or even necessarily very long.
The principal customers of hedge funds are pension funds, endowment funds, and other big institutional money pools. For a while, it was possible for top hedge fund managers to make over a billion dollars a year — and pay a 15% tax rate on their income. But hedge funds are no longer the money machines they once were. And the special tax privileges enjoyed by hedge fund billionaires aren’t likely to last much longer, either.
Recently, some hedge funds have started offering modestly-priced shares to the masses. When they try to sell the company to the hoi polloi, that’s a sure sign the money well has dried up. It appears that hedge funds have soaked up all the loose money lying around in dusty corners of the economy, and most of them now badly trail the stock index ETFs the serfs buy for their 401(k)s. When the working class gets higher investment returns than a financial product does, you know for sure that product’s days are numbered — and so are the fortunes of those who rode the gravy train to the top when the getting was good.
How these guys managed to siphon so much wealth that wasn’t theirs into their own pockets undoubtedly will be the subject of many expose books in years to come. In the meantime, the impoverished masses need to keep their eyes on one thing in particular: Sports teams and taxpayer-funded sports palaces are one of the juiciest drinking straws of all, and they’re made possible by the buying and selling of whore politicians that our Wild West political system fosters. The people on city and county councils who cut these deals with the Hansens, Nordstroms, and Ballmers of the world are not your friends — unless your name happens to be Hansen, Nordstrom, or Balmer.
Our wingnut friends constantly remind us of how public pension funds are underfunded and at financial risk. I agree there are some problems with public pensions, but I don’t agree the solution is to cut or eliminate pensions. If we want stronger public pensions, the first reform should be to pay money managers what they’re worth. Specifically, stop paying 2% + 20% to people who can’t earn more than 5% a year with our pension savings. (That’s about what Chris Hansen made for his investors last year.) Or, at least, revise the compensation system so they get paid only from the portion of earnings that exceed a standard benchmark, say the S&P 500, so that if the S&P goes up 13% in a year (as it did in 2012) and the hedge fund earns a 14% return with the pension system’s money, the hedge fund manager’s compensation is capped at the 1% difference. If he earns 30% a year with the pensioners’ money, then he gets 2% + 20% but not to exceed the amount of return exceeding 13% of assets. Sound fair? It does to me. If a guy is worth $67 million a year, then pay him $67 million a year. (Damn! There’s that rabbit sounding like a capitalist again!) If he can’t do any better than a $75,000-a-year state manager could do managing the same funds, then either pay him $75,000 a year, or hire a $75,000-a-year state manager to do the job. That’s what makes sense to me.
Critics of public pensions often argue the 8% target commonly used by these funds is unrealistic, and claim the solvency of public pension systems should be determined using much lower investment return assumptions. They may have a valid point because, as they point out, few public pension funds are earning 8%. (In particular, their hedge fund investments have performed dismally in the last couple of years.) But if we’re going to assume public pension systems can’t earn 8% in the financial markets, then why should they employ outside manager, and in particular highly compensated hedge fund managers, at all? If we’re going to settle for 3% or 4% returns on public pension monies, why not just hire a $75,000-a-year state manager to handle the investments? At least you’re cutting your expenses, so you’ll be making the most of whatever returns are possible in this low-return investing environment. It’s not that hard to make 3% or 4%, all you have to do is buy stocks in 10 or 20 companies paying dividends in that range, and you’ll do fine. (I actually own about 40 stocks in my sub-$1 million portfolio, but I’m a nervous rabbit, so I diversify more than the norm.) A $75,000-a-year manager could invest the state’s $60 billion or so of pension monies in stocks yielding 3% to 4% in less than a month with a couple phone calls a day. Then all he has to do is keep an eye on them and do essentially nothing unless something changes at one of the companies he’s invested in. That’s basically what I do. Hell, if they can’t find anyone else, I’ll do it for $75,000 a year! It doesn’t cost me any extra time or effort, because I’m already watching the stock market. Just deposit the monthly salary to my bank account, given me signed authorization, and we’re good to go! Our state pensioners don’t need Chris Hansen or his ilk for this job. I’ll pick companies that raise their dividends every year, and within 3 or 4 years, I’ll be easily beating Chris Hansen’s 5% return. And all you have to pay me is the $75,000 and state bennies. I’m good, I’m cheap, and I’m eager and willing! How can the state pass up an offer like this?
@35 She’d better hope the woods runs out of bears before she runs out of boyfriends. Or get a bigger gun.
@37
Yep. They trash them and then complain about how they’re trashed and don’t work. Typical rightwing nonsense. Just like the NRA spending the last 20 years doing everything they could to make sure that gun laws don’t work and then complaining about how gun laws don’t work.
8 percent is actualy pretty aggressive, considering that public pension managers are often restricted on what they can or can’t invest in. Taking the realisti approach of 6 or 7 might be wiser, over the long run. Under-promise and over-deliver should be every pensions manager’s mantra.
Another thing to check is how these guys are computing gains. Sometimes their methods are a bit murky. You might actually have to convert the stated returns to something more in common with reality.
Also, it’ a good idea to check out a pension manager’s standard deviation of returns over a 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30-year track record.
@41 Of course 8% is aggressive. I can make 10% – 15% a year in the stock market — at least while Bernanke keeps pumping $85 billion a month of helium into it — but it’s much harder to do when you’re investing tens of billions instead of hundreds of thousands.
I don’t think aggressively lower investment targets is the solution, though. I think the solution is ending the government policies that rob savers to save irresponsible borrowers by ending the zero-interest-rate bullshit and letting investment returns float up to a level determined by an open market that isn’t being manipulated by greasy little bankers and their bought-and-paid-for friends in government.
@41 “Also, it’ a good idea to check out a pension manager’s standard deviation of returns over a 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30-year track record.”
None of that means anything now, because everything that happens in the financial markets is determined by fiat, not market forces.
I’m not kidding. All the usual market metrics — P/E, S&P 500 yields, various ratios, etc. — are useless. You can’t rely on a goddamn thing, because everything will change instantly when the Fed pulls the stool out from under us.
Yeah, visualize yourself standing on a stool with a rope suspended from a ceiling beam draped around your neck. That’s what Bernanke is doing to every stock, bond, real estate, currency, commodities, and precious metals investor on the planet. What the fuck can you do except pray you’re not on the stool when he kicks it?
Your alternative is to park your money in zero-interest insured bank accounts and watch inflation nibble it away. But does anyone think that when Bernanke turns off the helium and interest rates go up, the financial markets won’t drop and inflation won’t explode? He has pumped $3 trillion of new cash into the banking system with nothing backing it except the “full faith and credit” of the government, which translated into English, means savers and investors don’t get anything for letting the government use $16 trillion of their money.
There’s no fucking way to win in this deal. Everyone in the investment community knows we’re all going to get screwed in the end. Just read the financial blogs. Nobody is fooled, but everyone’s hands are tied.
snarl rant growl
From 42,
But can you make 10 to 15 percent over a 100-year period? Expect realistic returns. People who think they can consistently make 20 percent per year are deluding themselves.
When I give it some thought, I see what you really want is to be worshipped by everyone.You think you are the smartest guy in the room. I think you have delusions of grandeur, Roger.
@44 “But can you make 10 to 15 percent over a 100-year period?”
Not unless I live to be at least 130 years old.
@45 Nice deflection from the substance of my comments. I infer from that you don’t have a rebuttal to what I said.
Hey DUMB Wabbit
Oh you mean those three rich 1%er Obummer jock straps and those libtard politicians are not looking out for HA libtard interests? Puddy wonders why Fraggy hasn’t called out his OWS schmucks to protest at their homes?
So you do you HA libtard leftist lemmings continue to jock strap those useless politicians eh DUMB Wabbit? Seems the jack boot march continues!
A federal jury has awarded $13.2 million to a gay black man who served 11 years in prison after being framed by Cleveland police detectives for a murder he didn’t commit. He was exonerated by DNA evidence with the help of Innocence Project lawyers.
Weally DUMB Wabbit. U R one stupid DUMB Wabbit!
Facts always singe DUMB Wabbits!
Re 48: Who has the Puddy Decoder Ring? Can I borrow it? Never mind, it’s not worth the effort.
Golly DUMB Wabbit, another whom posts mostly leftist coming to the correct conclusion about you!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
@50 When did you guys start worrying about collateral damage? Certainly not before January 20, 2009.
@52 If you think that guy is a “leftist,” then you also must think you’re the only troll on this board. Or maybe you don’t consider yourself a troll?
So DUMB Wabbit… what Bernanke is doing every month isn’t hurting the average citizen? To the standard HA libtard leftist lemming: If you don’t know what Bernanke is doing each month without looking it up on Google, then you are a low information voter! Standard fare on HA!
The loon is back.
Unfortunately, I can’t engage with you this evening, puddinghead. I have serious work to do. Ciao.
Puddy repeats your commentary from before
@1 We don’t worry about Obama because, unlike his predecessor, he doesn’t actually kill innocent people.
@55 Who the fuck do you think my comment was directed against, numbskull? A jolly guy in a red suit who gets pulled around by reindeer?
When the BTUs are increased on the DUMB Wabbit… he runs…
Yes, his grandeur delusions are under attack!
@59,
You are the stock market profit bragging moron of HA DUMB Wabbit! Talking out of both sides of your body again. So which comment is coming from your ASS and which from your “mouth”? Puddy can’t tell the difference unless you are like Pluto boy… all arschloch!
@58 Alright, I’ll clarify my comment to say Obama doesn’t deliberately kill innocent people like his predecesor did. Accident and intentional are two different things. As the great justice, Holmes, said: “Even a dog knows the difference between being stepped on and kicked.” Apparently you don’t, though, which makes you dumber than a dog although this is hardly a revelation to veteran HA readers.
@60 Like I said, I have work to do, so you can keep busy by playing with yourself until I come back. Later.
delusions of grandeur appear again!
Interesting… So you accede your previous useless comment as typical DUMB Wabbit blather. Got proof for this one now? Also seems you are projecting again…
You were the one changing his tune to the facts, so being dumber than a dog sticks in your case. So that kick sent the DUMB Wabbit flying to the side of truth and facts.
Does this guy post on HA with a nom de plume?
Yeah, Chavez was a human rights leader!
HAHAHAHAHA!
More HA low information voter types found on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
Can’t make this stuff up! The comments are P R I C E L E S S!
Christ on a Hoverround. The Teanazis have come completely fucking unglued.
Puddy bets these two Cleveland cops are DUMMOCRAPTS!
As Puddy said the other day… she needs to be pasturized!
Damn, when did this happen? Puddy must have been out of the country when this legal right started. No wonder HA’s Pluto boy is a whack job. Look at what that state produces for senators.
Puddy has an idea… Let’s remove her protective entourage’s guns with hair brushes, dog whistles and Bic pens. Yeah that’s the ticket.
Is Roger Rabbit A Self-Worshipping Braggart?
Let’s review:
@42 Roger Rabbit spewed, “I can make 10% – 15% a year in the stock market.”
@45 Ten Years After spewed, “When I give it some thought, I see what you really want is to be worshipped by everyone.”
@61 Puffybutt spewed, “You are the stock market profit bragging moron of HA DUMB Wabbit!”
Now let’s check out some relevant facts, as facts seem to be relevant to the question of whether Roger Rabbit is “bragging” by claiming he can make 10% – 15% a year in the stock market.
Let’s suppose a monkey bought an index fund that tracks the S&P 500 on Dec. 30, 2011. There are several of these; we’ll arbitrarily pick the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (trading symbol SPY), because it’s the biggest, most popular, and best-known.
So, on 12/30/11, the last trading day of 2011, a monkey buys SPY for $125.50, the closing price on that day. Okay. Let’s lock the monkey in a cage where he has no access to newspapers or TV or any other news, and unplug the phone so he has no access to his stockbroker, to make sure the monkey knows nothing and does nothing with respect to his stock portfolio for the rest of the year.
One year later, on 12/31/2012, the last trading day of 2012, SPY closed at $142.51. Now, $142.41 – $125.50 = $16.91, and $16.91 divided by $125.50 = 13.47%, so our monkey, after being imprisoned incommunicado for a year, has made 13.47% on his stock investments.
Okay. I said I could make 10% – 15% a year. The midpoint of that is 12.5%, so what I’m “bragging” about is that I think I can underperform a monkey buying the S&P 500 index by 0.97% a year. That’s not much of a brag, it’s more like an embarrassing admission that I can’t beat a monkey in a cage who knows nothing about investing.
You guys wanna call that “bragging”? Well, okay, go ahead and call it “bragging” or “self-worshipping” or whatever. As for me, I’m embarrassed to admit I’m only making 12.5% a year by riding a market that’s advancing 13.5%. That’s pretty lame, if you ask me.
Let’s not lose sight of what this discussion is about, namely, whether 8% is an unrealistic goal for our state pension funds. In a year when an index ETF makes 13.47%, a return of 8% doesn’t look terribly ambitious. I suggested that instead of paying a hedge fund manager 2% of assets and 20% of profits to make 5% for the state, they should hire me for $75,000 plus bennies. I would’ve bought an index ETF on Dec. 30, 2011, then gone back to my burrow and slept under Dec. 31, 2012, and made 13.47% by doing absolutely nothing.
Of course, if they want to pay me the hedge fund rate, I’ll take it! Assuming there’s about $70 billion under management, 2% + 20% works out to about $3.3 billion. At a 15% tax rate, I’d take home about $2.8 billion a year for sticking the state’s money in an index ETF and then doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the year. I’m willing to get paid like that to do nothing. But, as I said, I’m willing to do it for $75,000 a year plus bennies.
If I were paying some guy over $2 billion a year to manage my $70 billion of pension funds, and he came back on Dec. 31 with a 5% return on my money, I’d put out a contract on his ass! I’d have him killed! Or I’d kill him myself!
I guess I’ll let my HA friends decide whether I was “bragging” when I said I can make 10% – 15% a year in the stock market, given that every illiterate Arab in Yemen who owned an index ETF last year made that. Pop Rabbit (RIP, sniffle) told me if you want people to worship you, you’ll have to do at least 5% better than the S & P 500 index, and if you don’t want them to lynch you, you’d better at least tie the index.
From 47,
Actually, I don’t have much of an opinion of anything you say. I do think, however, that you are very arrogant and full of yourself. You make Bill O’Reilly look like a wallflower.
From 71,
Wow, you are truly one of the most arrogant and self-centered guy on any blog anywhere! Do you have a problem with being bullied in elementary school?
I’ll say it again: for a pension manager to say he can do 8 percent over a 40 or 50 year period is wishful thinking. It would be great if he could, but the risks taken to achieve that goal might very well ruin a pension plan and the people depending on that money.
When you’re investing for the retirement of others, you have to be very carefully. Taking less risk goes hand-in-hand with lower (and more realistic) returns.
@73 Whatever. There’s already gobs of inanity on this blog; a little more won’t be noticed.
@74 And I’ll repeat again: We’ll all be dead in 40 or 50 years. Sheesh.
I pulled this from one of my investment email subscriptions: “With companies looking to avoid paying taxes on their profits, 83 of the largest firms kept $1.46T overseas in 2012, up 14.4% from the previous year, Bloomberg calculates. GE (GE) again had the most with $108B held offshore, up from $102B in 2011; Pfizer was second with $73B, after which came Microsoft (MSFT), Merck (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and IBM (IBM).”
I read another article in this weekend’s Barron’s magazine arguing, again, for a cut in corporate taxes.
What corporate taxes? How can you cut the taxes of a company that isn’t paying any taxes?
Corporate profits are at an all-time high — more than 10% of GDP and approaching 11% of GDP. Corporate taxes are 9% of federal revenues — the lowest level since World War 2 — and sinking.
Seems pretty damned obvious that corporations should be paying more, not less, taxes. If you disagree, then you’re not serious about deficit reduction, and have no credibility when you say entitlements must be cut to reduce deficits.
@74 It doesn’t matter how many times you say something, because repeating an untruth over and over doesn’t make it come true, no matter how strongly global warming deniers and birthers try to convince themselves to the contrary.
I, you, and any other investor, including a pension fund manager, can get 8% simply by buying a good dividend growth stock and sitting on it. Between regular dividend increases, reinvested dividends, and capital gains, it doesn’t take very many years for total return on original investment to reach 8% and once it does it’ll never fall below that, it’ll keep going higher and higher, barring some disaster to the stock.
If you do have a 40-year investment horizon, the potential results are truly phenomenal. I recently did a simple spreadsheet calculation for a friend of mine who has a child in military service. This calculation showed that a 22-year-old who invested $50,000 in dividend growth stocks that raised their dividends by 5% a year, and reinvested the dividends in the same stocks through a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), could retire at age 62 with something like $42,500 a year of dividend income — without ever adding another penny of capital. If this works for an army private — and it does — it’ll work for a pension manager, too.
Oh sure, the stock market has its ups and downs, and stocks come and go. Periodically you have to get rid of one and replace it with another one. But you can find 3% yields and reliable dividend growth virtually all of the time. It’s easy and doesn’t require searching for needles in haystacks. My portfolio is full of stocks with names like AT&T, Boeing, Chevron, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Procter & Gamble, Verizon, and so on. Just buy a stable of big blue chippers that have been raising their dividends since Biblical times and it’s almost impossible not to make 8% a year. You won’t right away, but this stuff compounds, and it doesn’t take half a century of compounding to get to 8% on your basis.
I don’t post this stuff here to brag. I post it here because most people are doing it wrong and I’m trying to educate them for their own good. Millions of people have trillions of dollars of cash sitting in zero-interest accounts because they’re scare of the stock market. I’m trying to show people that not putting their money in stocks is far more dangerous than putting it in stocks. That happens to be the truth, and if you want to criticize me, or mock me, or whatever for speaking the truth then go right ahead. That says more about you than it does about me.
I also think it’s stupid to give hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to a hedge fund guy who charges his clients an arm and leg to make 5% for them to build an arena for a basketball team he doesn’t even own that plays in another state. Seattle held an election on this and 90% of the city’s voters said “no” to a basketball palace, but the people we elected to supposedly represent us are going to do it anyway. Just like happened with the baseball palace: The voters said “no” and it was built with public money anyway. What part of “no” don’t our public officials understand? At some point you have to wonder whether they’re corrupt and are taking bribes. It seems like a small cabal of uber-rich people run this city and the rest of us don’t count for squat. Why shouldn’t we get bent out of shape with that? Do you expect us to passively go along with this horseshit?
I’m starting to wonder if a couple of trolls here have a personal agenda — like maybe they got hurt in the Great Recession and are looking for someone to take it out on.
Getting back to this issue of whether it’s possible to consistently make investment returns of 8% …
I can easily run the numbers for our IRAs, because I know exactly how much we put in, and when. About 37% of our IRA contributions were made in 1982-1984 and the other 63% were made in 2007-2009 (Mrs. Rabbit had a part-time job then). So while some of the money in our IRAs had 30 years to grow, the majority — nearly two-thirds — has had only 3 to 5 years to grow.
I took the Total Return — Capital Gains + Dividends — accrued since January 1, 2013, and divided that number by the total contributions to our IRAs over the years, then annualized that percentage by dividing by 67 days and multiplying by 365 days, and the number I get is 460%.
That’s right, in the first 3.3 months of this year, the annual rate of return on the original investment in our IRAs is 460%. Of course, that could go up or down by the end of this year, possibly by a lot, depending on what the stock market does for the rest of this year. But it’s actual history, not a hypothetical, that since January 1 to date, I’ve made over 84 cents on every dollar we ever put into our IRAs over the years — and, once again, over 60% of that money was put in these IRAs less than 5 years ago.
And some bozo is trying to tell me I can’t make 8% a year in the stock market? Fuck off, dude. Stop peddling disinformation to the other people who read this blog. You can fuck yourself financially if you want to, and I don’t care if you do, but stop trying to fill other readers’ heads with nonsense that will hurt them.
Well-chosen stocks consistently provide higher returns than any other asset class, and it’s been that way for over 200 years. No one can time markets, so you have to be invested all the time. And to take advantage of compounding, you have to reinvest the dividends and gains — nobody ever spent their way to wealth or financial health. Don’t go into debt, pay off debts, until you don’t have any debts left, then take the payments you used to make on your debts and invest that money in well-chosen stocks. How fucking hard is it to follow these simple rules? Apparently too hard for most people. All I’m trying to do here is educate people who may be struggling so they have a chance to turn their lives around. It doesn’t take some complicated alchemy or fantastic luck or sophisticated knowledge. The rules are extremely simple, the math is very simple, and like the rules of physics that govern the universe, the rules never change and that means if you follow these rules the results will be very consistent over time no matter what happens.
I’ve said enough on this topic, so I’m going to stop here. This comment contains everything you need to know to have a healthy financial life. If other people want to post comments calling me names, they’re free to do that. You can read what they post, or you can read what I post, that’s up to you. Who you listen to, and who you ignore, does make a difference to your quality of life. That choice is yours alone to make.
Shifting topics, Barron’s magazine isn’t some Marxist propaganda sheet. Their editorial slant is blatantly pro-business and pro-Republican. (They ran two feature articles last year projecting their editors’ wishful thinking that Romney would win by a landslide.) Here’s what they said about the stock market on page 13 of the March 11, 2013 issue that hit newsstands and libraries yesterday:
“Wall Street typically favors Repoublicans, but there is no denying the stock market’s splendid performance under the Democrat-in-chief, President Barack Obama. Potus might wag his finger at fat-cat capitalists, but most equity portfolios have grown chunkier during Obama’s first 1,505 days in office.
“The Standard & Poor’ 500 has enjoyed its best return for any presidential period going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower …. From Obama’s first inaugural on Jan. 20, 2009, through last Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 91.2%. Only Bill Clinton came close to Obama’s record for his first 1,505 days in office, with an 85.1% market return. …
Come to think of it, the president very nearly called the bottom four years ago, when he suggested during a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on March 5, 2009, that it was a good time to buy stocks … the market bottomed four days later. Late last week, it was … about 1.5% below its [all-time] high … if he market keeps rising at its current pace, it will double by the time the president leaves office.”
This isn’t an aberration or one-off. Stocks consistently do better under Democratic presidents. That’s a historical fact that can be readily fact-checked. From President Harding in 1921 to President Bush in 2003, Democratic presidents created more than twice as many jobs as Republican presidents, GDP grew 42% more under Democrats than Republicans, and the Dow average grew 52% more under Democrats than Republicans, even though Republicans occupied the White House for more years during that period. (Source: Derived from Bureau of Labor Statistics and Economic Policy Institute data.)
One of the ironies of American political life is that Republicans love to call Democrats “Marxists” and “socialists” but capitalists do markedly better under Democratic administrations. Maybe that’s why hugely successful capitalists like Warren Buffett and George Soros support Democrats instead of Republicans. My advice is, if you want to live like a poor peasant in a communist country, then vote for Republicans; but if you want to live the life of a prosperous capitalist, then you’d better vote for Democrats.
Nah. He spent too much time as a Republican. He’s over the worst of it and mellowed a lot over the years…
Mass Shooting Of The Day (TM)
“At least a dozen people were injured in a drive-by shooting in northwest Washington, D.C., early Monday. Authorities said that around 2 a.m., someone … opened fire on a crowd of people outside an apartment building ….”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....on-dc?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Another madman exercising his Second Amendment “rights” …
Meanwhile, the rightwing jackassery never ends.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....rship?lite
Polls show 71% of Americans support raising the federal minimum wage, but that doesn’t stop Republicans from opposing it.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....-wage?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: You’ve got to wonder who those people think they represent. When a state where Democrats get a majority of the votes for congressional seats has two-thirds of its seats occupied by Republicans because of gerrymandering, that isn’t democracy anymore, it’s dictatorship of the minority.
Rep. Paul Ryan (Prefers Minority Party) is preparing a budget proposal that would repeal Obamacare and partially privatize Medicare. He expressed his opinion that he didn’t think it would pass the Senate.
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Why do Republicans waste everybody’s time with such grandstanding? This isn’t negotiating or compromising, it’s just being an asshole.
@84 I wasn’t a Republican very long, but it doesn’t take very long to get PTSD from hanging out with that bunch.
Ten Years after: Spot On!
You are right about the Rabbit. He is obnoxious and full of himself. Egotistical, self aggrandizing: wants everyone to kiss his ass and think he is the smartest guy in the room (his opinion).