Middle Class Dismissed

Illinois Debt Takes Toll On Services, Study Finds

"For years, Illinois has racked up billions in public debt to plug budget holes, pay overdue bills, and put money into its mismanaged pension funds. And for the people who live there, this has resulted in decrepit commuter trains and buses, thousands of unsound bridges, 200 hazardous dams and one of the most inequitable public school systems in America. Illinois has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states and has America’s second-biggest public debt per capita, $9,624, including state and local borrowing. Only New York State’s debt is bigger, at $13,840 per capita." Continue reading →

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2013 Federal Income Tax (Fiscal Cliff) Calculator

"This U.S. Federal Individual income tax calculator shows the estimated personal taxes owed by both individuals and married couples, whether employed or self-employed. The 2013 income tax calculations are what the law currently specifies will be owed by Americans in the year 2013, unless Congress (beleaguered by the debt ceiling, a Presidential election, and massive looming automatic budget cuts) has the time and wherewithal to change the law." Continue reading →

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GDP Was Strong in Q3; Why Did That Happen?

"Weaponized Keynesianism happened. Government defense expenditures surged by 13 percent between July and August. The Pentagon spent significantly more on weapons, training, operations, and maintenance. (Ammunition purchases, for instance, doubled.) Had these expenditures not occurred last quarter, the U.S. economy would have grown at a mere 1.36 percent, instead of 2.0 percent." Continue reading →

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Yes, Virginia, Social Security Really Is Going Bankrupt.

"At the heart of every defensive of Social Security's actuarial solvency is a series of lies. It is difficult to know who started the lie, but if you follow the lies, you always get back to the truth, and the truth is admitted by the Trustees of the Social Security trust fund. This is the best-case scenario. There is a worse-case scenario: the inevitable one." Continue reading →

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Get Ready: Everything Is Going to Cost More Next Year

"Consumers will have to dig deeper into their pockets next year to pay for costlier health care, more expensive grocery bills and higher taxes, an extra drag on the country's already slow-moving economy. The additional outlays look set to test the resilience of consumers, whose spending accounts for around two-thirds of the U.S. economy. The strength of consumer spending has surprised some economists, given unemployment near 8 percent and anemic wage growth. Consumer spending has cushioned the blow to the United States from slower foreign demand for its goods." Continue reading →

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Soros Ex-Wife Lists Apartment for $50 Million

"Susan Weber Soros, the former wife of the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, has listed her elegantly appointed 10-room apartment at the Majestic, the soaring dual-towered Art Deco co-op at 115 Central Park West, for $50 million. It is being offered fully furnished — Ms. Soros is downsizing and making a clean break — and the price includes a separate one-bedroom one-bath unit for staff. Ms. Soros bought the apartment for $25 million in an under-the-radar transaction in 2006, a year after her two-decade marriage to Mr. Soros ended in divorce." Continue reading →

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A Chance to Live Like a Soros

"Andrea Soros Colombel and her husband, Eric Colombel, have put their Greenwich Village townhouse at 10 W. 10th St. on the market for $29.5 million. The fully renovated, seven-bedroom home is a four-story Greek revival-style townhouse that dates back to 1844. It comes with an elevator, three wood-burning fireplaces and a state-of-the-art sound system." Continue reading →

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Craigslist mob steals nearly everything from foreclosed family’s home

"A mob of people showed up at a home in Woodstock, Georgia on Wednesday, responding to a Craigslist ad that promised free items in the home's small driveway. But when the man who posted the ad arrived at the sale, he discovered that the mob had barged inside the home and was taking everything the family owned. Michael Vercher, whose family lived there for 20 years before recently losing the home to foreclosure, looked like he hardly knew what hit him. 'They came in and just tore the place up. Everyone was inside the house; they were taking out items. There were cars around the block. It was like ants in and out of the house.'" Continue reading →

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Get a U.S. Passport Now – While You Still Can

"Until a century ago, almost anywhere you went in the world, passports were not required for international travel. Rare passports were used mainly to insure passage of diplomats sent to negotiate peace treaties or carry official papers. Now governments use passports as another part of citizen control and surveillance. Official passport control marked the Cold War years, but now it is applied with a bureaucratic, computer-driven vengeance, justified by the endless 'War on Terror.' I often get questions about the possibility of currency and capital controls, but thinking Americans should be equally concerned about foreign travel controls." Continue reading →

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British ‘End of Life’ Panels Are Bad News for Everyone

"General practitioners are being encouraged by the Government Department of Health to make lists of people who they believe are not going to live long. But that's not all. There are other unmistakable statements in the report that make it clear the mandate to provide end-of-life care is going to be aggressively implemented throughout the British state-run health care system. Death programs are like any other government service, actually. They will be continually expanded and made more complex to ensure the expansion of the departments in question. Eventually, people could die simply to ensure that a department meets certain quotas." Continue reading →

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