US incomes fall to 1989 levels. How did that happen?

Here's a good laugh for the day
A recession lol what a joke.
Try the big "D" word, it's a tad more fitting at this point.
Oh well , what can you expect from a propaganda piece?

a $560 billion package of mandatory spending cuts and tax hikes that take effect at year's end, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, that could cause a recession unless Congress takes countermeasures to prevent a big drop in consumption.

A Census report signals that for much of America, the economic downturn has produced not one lost decade but two. But the data also show that federal safety-net programs helped keep people out of poverty

Economists haven't reached a consensus about what forces have caused the middle-class stagnation, but they have pointed to some that may be involved to varying degrees:
•Globalization

Deal Struck on Tax Package

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003441518282986.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories


Lol is the social security reduction being proposed to hide the huge jump in withholding taxes on 2011, which by the way have absolutely nothing to do with Bush's tax cuts.
Me thinks it is.
And what's up with borrowing more to extend the unemployment extension?
Here's a better idea, use that 62 billion to replace the manufacturing base that the United States no longer has.
That idea would actually put people permanently back to work.
Will they do it?
Hell no it makes to much sense.


The payroll-tax reduction under discussion now would cut the 6.2% Social Security tax levied on a worker's wages to 4.2%. A worker making $40,000 a year would save $800, and some economists say that could help stimulate demand at a time when the economy remains relatively weak.

New figures detail depth of unemployment misery

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/income_inequality_statistics_tax_code__n_773392.html

Leave it to David Cay Johnston, to reveal the truth.
For more of the same kind of truth, written very easily to understand,
Read "FREE LUNCH" AND "PERFECTLY LEGAL".
Be warned they will absolutely make you sick, in regards to the social welfare given to Corporation.
Because David spells out some very hard to swallow realities in the "Free Lunch" give aways that are "Perfectly Legal" and well taken advantage of by the corporate elite and their cronies.



One out of every 34 Americans who earned wages in 2008 earned absolutely nothing -- not one cent -- in 2009.

The stunning figure was released earlier this month by the Social Security Administration, but apparently went unreported until it appeared today on Tax.com in a column by Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter David Cay Johnston

Deficit panel leader says Obama will OK findings

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100427/ap_on_bi_ge/us_deficit_commission



The co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit reduction commission said Tuesday that Obama would endorse its findings, including politically toxic tax increases and painful cuts to retirement benefits that the president was unwilling to propose on his own.


The deficit has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started at the end of 2007. Many projections show its size never dipping below 4 percent of the economy over the next decade. Deficits of that magnitude are unsustainable, economists say. They would put upward pressure on interest rates, crowd out private investment and ultimately erode living standards.

The quickly growing national debt — the accumulation of years of annual budget deficits — today stands at a staggering $12.88 trillion and the Congressional Budget Office expects the nation to add another $1 trillion a year for another decade. The federal government itself holds a large portion of this debt, some $4.5 trillion, with much of it sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund.

The remaining $8.5 trillion is held by worldwide investors in the form of Treasury bills and bonds. China is the largest single holder of these securities

Treasury seeks to protect federal benefits: report

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Treasury-seeks-to-protect-rb-2174460080.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

This is how bad the lying banks want money, and they intend to take it to.

The Treasury department will release new rules on Wednesday that would prevent banks from seizing a borrower's social security to recover unpaid debt, the Wall Street Journal said.

The proposed new rules, to be published in the Federal Register, will require banks to check if the borrower has received any direct deposits of federal benefits within the past 60 days, the Journal said.

In case the borrower had received a federal benefit then the new rule would require the banks to establish a protected amount equal to the sum of the benefits deposited, the paper said.

Defaulted Loans May Haunt Seniors

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/109011/defaulted-loans-may-haunt-seniors?mod=fidelity-managingwealth

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did!

A little–noticed law could soon result in smaller Social Security checks for hundreds of thousands of the elderly and disabled who owe the U.S. money from defaulted loans and other debts more than a decade old.

Social Security benefits are off–limits to creditors, such as credit–card companies and banks. But the U.S. can collect debts to federal agencies by "offsetting," or withholding Social Security and disability payments.

The Treasury currently withholds benefits of 3.1 million Social Security recipients to recover defaulted student–, farm– and small–business loans, unpaid income taxes, amounts veterans owe for health care, and other debts to the government.

Previously, the U.S. hasn't been able to withhold Social Security payments to recover most debts delinquent for more than ten years.

But a provision in the 2008 Farm Bill lifted the ten–year statute of limitations on the government's ability to withhold Social Security benefits in collecting debts other than student loans—for which the statute of limitations was lifted in 1997—and income taxes, where the limit remains 10 years.


This means that a person who defaulted on a small–business loan in 1995, for example, and who is receiving Social Security could be notified that his benefits may be reduced each month until the debt, with interest, fees, and penalties, is paid. The Treasury can withhold 15% of the benefit, though it can't be reduced to below $750. Tax debts have no floor.

Karl's take on Greenspan

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1751-Greedspan-Stick-A-Sock-In-It.html

Check out the bold. How much a month does go out to social security?
And how many months will 50 billion take it?


In answer to a question about why rising debt is a concern, Greenspan said: “The critical issue that economists worry about” is the spiral that occurs with ever-rising debt and debt service, often followed by higher interest rate. As a consequence of that, “the debt service becomes explosive and that moves directly into the budget deficit,” he added.

Yeah yeah. If you read his testimony what you will find missing is any acknowledgment of exactly how it is that government gets the idea that it can run more than a trillion dollars in deficits in the first place!

I'll tell you how, since "Sir" Alan won't: You find a central banker that will kneel before Congress whenever the members drop their drawers by pumping so much liquidity into the system that real rates are in fact NEGATIVE, thereby LITERALLY paying people to borrow.

Of course the government has never met a free money handout it didn't like, and political will for restraint is ZERO when faced with such a circumstance.

The solution to this is really quite simple: Don't do that sort of stupid crap!

We continue to challenge Einstein's General Theory of Insanity - you know, one of my favorite definitions?

Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.
The 900-lb Gorilla that stomped his first piece of china was found in the $290 billion debt limit increase - something that AP reported (perhaps accidentally):

Republicans - who helped supply votes to increase the debt ceiling just last year - unanimously opposed the legislation, which is required to issue new debt to pay for federal operations and deposit up to $50 billion into the Social Security trust funds.

Uh, Social Security wasn't supposed to go negative - that is, require actual general fund expenditures - for another 20 years!

But now it was - and that's a major problem. How much is Social Security and Medicare actually in the hole here? I don't know - but the fact that we're 20 years in front of where we should be in this regard is very ominous.

Obama calls for $250 payments to seniors

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091015/D9BB77S00.html


- President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year.

It would mark the first year without an increase in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

"Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," Obama said in a statement. "This additional assistance will be especially important in the coming months, as countless seniors and others have seen their retirement accounts and home values decline as a result of this economic crisis."

Obama's proposal is similar to several bills in Congress. The $250 payments would also go to those receiving veterans benefits, disability benefits, railroad retirees and retired public employees who don't receive Social Security. Recipients would be limited to one payment, even if they qualified for more.

The White House put the cost at $13 billion. Obama said he would not allow the payments to come out of the Social Security trust funds, further eroding the finances of the retirement program. Social Security already is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in each of the next two years.

However, Obama did not offer any alternatives to finance the payments. A senior