President Obama’s War on Wealth: When All Else Fails, Tax the Rich – NY Post   “This is redistribution for its own sake — the cost be damned. It took Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels about 30 seconds of his State of the Union rebuttal to demolish that idea. To get the rich to contribute more, explained Daniels, you don’t raise tax rates. This ultimately retards economic growth for all. You (a) eliminate loopholes from which the rich benefit disproportionately (tax reform) and (b) means-test entitlements so that the benefits go to those most in need.”

Bernanke Has “Finger on Trigger” for New Bond Buys – Reuters   “The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.”

Adding Up to Nothing: Obama’s Fast Talk on the Economy – NY Post   “Three years after the Hope and Change president took office, Hope turns out to mean high taxes and lots of regulations, and Change consists of celebrating the government’s takeover of General Motors and belittling technological progress that destroys some jobs even as it creates others. The Great Uniter is all about class warfare.”

The World from Berlin: ‘The EU Will Pay Even If Greece Doesn’t Deliver’ – Der Spiegel   “It makes no sense if we keep promising more money but don’t combat the causes of the crisis,” Merkel said in an interview with six European newspapers. “Amid all the billions in aid and rescue funds, we Germans also must watch that we do not lose our strength in the end — because our possibilities are not endless either, and that would not help Europe as a whole,” Merkel added. “We show solidarity, but must not forget (countries’) own initiative.”

Why Europe’s Crisis Can’t Be Averted – Reuters   “Effectively, the unlimited swap lines have solved most of the global liquidity problems, and have prevented the otherwise very scary prospect that a liquidity run could become a self-fulfilling insolvency process. But that of course doesn’t mean that the world’s economies are all solvent.”

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By Peter Morici

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama hammered on two resounding themes—fairness and the economy.

Both hollow from a president who has failed on the job. He has not kept his promise to get the economy going again, and inequities in income and opportunities have hardened during his tenure. Scratch the surface of his largely reworked proposals, and too much political opportunism and hypocrisy emerges.

Once again, he promised to Read More »

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Not Again! Debt Ceiling Debate Set to Make a Monstrous Return – Yahoo   “Well guess what, movie fans? The sequel to last summer’s debt ceiling showdown in Congress is coming to theaters everywhere this fall, and the early reviews say it will be even bloodier than the first.”

Retirement in America Is ‘Endangered’: Social Security, Contribution Rates and More Need Fixes – MarketWatch   “I think the state of retirement in America is endangered as the ‘Great Recession’ has taken a toll on the financial status of many and as retirement savings were not adequate for many prior to the ‘Great Recession.”

Siemens CEO: U.S. Can Compete Via Innovation – USA Today   “The truth is, though innovation is still happening in America, it isn’t happening only here. The major advances being made right now in wind and solar technology are being made in Europe. The major advances being made in biofuels are all happening in Brazil. The same can be said for batteries in Asia. If we keep taking a back seat on innovation in such critical new industries, there will be a point where we are no longer the leader in innovation.”

Fear May Save the Euro, but Not Necessarily Europe – Globe and Mail   “Angela Merkel came to Davos on Wednesday and, in a speech as solidly built as a Mercedes, once again assured the world’s business leaders that the euro will be saved. But this time, there’s a difference: More of them seem to believe it. That immediately raises two further questions: Even if the euro zone is saved, where is the strategy for growth? And where would this saving of the euro leave the larger politics of Europe?”

Insight: Today It Pays to Owe Money, While U.S. Savers Suffer – Reuters   “For Smith and other pensioners struggling to cope with inflation higher than the rate of interest they earn on their savings, all of this amounts to, as she puts it, ‘being punished’ for being prudent. She is a casualty of the Fed’s strategy to keep rates low in an attempt to generate the economic growth needed to lower the nation’s jobless rate. Low borrowing costs also prevent the federal government’s debt burden from getting even further out of control.”

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: Here are some rather informative comments from The Dollar Vigilante about what is currently taking place in parts of Italy. As usual, most of this is being ignored by our mainstream media, but we thought YOU would like to know ahead-of-time.

By Jeff Berwick

[Editor's Note: The following is from TDV's Correspondent in Italy, Alexander Jousse]

This past week has been a very turbulent time for Italy.  And it wasn’t just the grounding Read More »

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: I thought these comments were especially timely, since the Federal Reserve announced earlier today that it was pledging to keep interest rates low through the end of 2014, an extremely long period of time. Additionally, the Fed said that it is “prepared to provide further monetary accommodation if employment is not making sufficient progress towards our assessment of its maximum level, or if inflation shows signs of moving Read More »

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Obama Makes Populist Pitch – Wall Street Journal   “Mr. Obama’s laundry-list of initiatives—steep tax increases on wealthier Americans, fresh investigations into the mortgage crisis and support for domestic manufacturing—was aimed at buttressing a re-election message that posits him as defender of Americans beset by inequality in the tax code and broader economy.”

Warren Buffett’s Secretary Likely (Reportedly) Makes Between $200,000 And $500,000/Year – Forbes   “I have nothing against Debbie Bosanke earning a half million or even more. Buffet is a major player in the world economy. His secretary deserves good compensation. At her income, however, she is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project.”  This is the person Obama picks as the perfect example of the “unfairness” of our tax system?

Soros: Euro Crisis Might Wreck EU – Guardian   “George Soros says Europe did too little, too late, and Nouriel Roubini says Europe needs ‘less austerity and more growth’”

Geithner: Obama Wouldn’t Ask Me to Stay in a Second Term – Bloomberg   “He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”

WHO’S GREEDY? Obama Gave 1% to Charity, Romney Gave 15% – Fox News   “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign.”

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By George Neumayr

Obama’s parasitism is far more destructive than the “Bain mentality.”

Put the worst possible construction on Mitt Romney’s career as a venture capitalist and it still looks much better than Barack Obama’s. Pecking at the entrails of a limping economy, Obama is the vulture socialist.

A president who promised to bankrupt the coal industry is in no position to gainsay Romney’s record of job creation at Bain Capital. Romney created at least Read More »

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Forget Greece; It’s Portugal That’ll Destroy the Euro: One Default Is an Accident; Two Is a Systemic Crisis – MarketWatch   “Greece is already bust — and its default is already priced into the market. But Portugal is in precisely the same position, just on a longer fuse. It too is sliding toward an inevitable default on its debts — and when it does so, it will deliver a terminal political blow to the single currency, and inflict damage on the European banking system that may well prove catastrophic.”

Federal Reserve: Benchmark Rate Will Stay Low Until ’14 – Bloomberg   “Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the Federal Reserve is considering additional asset purchases to boost growth after extending its pledge to keep interest rates low through at least late 2014.”

President Obama Proposes Mortgage Refinances for ‘Responsible Borrowers’ – CNBC   “After several largely ineffective programs to help troubled borrowers and after fruitless attempts at budging the hard-line conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, President Obama is proposing a brand new refinance program for borrowers who are current on their mortgages, regardless of who owns their loan; the catch is that this one has to go through Congress.”

Iran Starts Converting Assets to Gold to Bypass Sanctions – Bullion Street   “To bypass the move, authorities converted country’s assets in European banks to gold and shares and another part were transferred to Asian banks.”

President Obama’s Tax Deform Agenda – Forbes   “For a while there, I thought President Obama was going to embrace tax reform in his State of the Union address. Instead, following the lead of his predecessors, he offered a laundry list of new tax subsidies, bragged about some old ones, and said almost nothing about a top-to-bottom rewrite of the tax code.”

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By John Browne, Senior Economic Consultant to Euro Pacific Capital

Recently some of the fears that investors had focused on in the 11th hour debt negotiations in Greece have drifted southeastward towards the Strait of Hormuz. An increasingly bellicose Iran threatens to throw the world economy into confusion with the potential closure of one of the world’s most important sources of energy. Catastrophic failure in Athens or the Gulf could plunge the world into Read More »

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