are they serious! every time they touch something in the economy it turns to crap. they will put a lot of restaurants out of business. they honestly don't understand that this will have a ripple effect. is it law yet? what is our government doing. they do know that is political suicide. because they would lose all of the health nuts. they are freaking crazy. and they are crazy to think that the one department could police that. because they would lose the help of the local government. because a lot of local governments depend on local farmers. and they would be out lawing something that is good for you. it is all most like they want america to riot. this country is becoming a fucking joke.

at least they were not smart enough to put it in the health care bill. or stupid enough, depending on how you look at things.

actually, most 5 star restaurants and some of the small local restaurants buy there produce from only local farmers. that is how they get that good taste. meaning no local farmer no restaurants with good food.

the american public have been doing a good job of dodging all of these bullets so far. but it looks like they just put down the hand gun, and picked up a machine gun. i hate to say this but it will only be a matter if time before we get hit and screwed by something. they are doing a damn good job at trying to ruin the economy. i would even go as far to say they are doing a better job then bush did.

this guy sounds like my type of person. it is about time a politician ask the fed how much money and gold they really have. here is the article. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/31/rep-paul-calls-fort-knox-audit-suggests-gold-gone/

There's gold in them thar hills. Or is there?

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, suggesting America's reserves may not be as robust as officials claim, is calling for an independent audit of the U.S. gold held at Fort Knox and other facilities.

The Republican congressman known for his fierce opposition to virtually everything the Federal Reserve does says the public deserves to know what's behind the fortified walls of America's gold vaults -- particularly in case gold is ever reintroduced as a basis for U.S. currency
.

"It'd be nice for the American people to know whether or not the gold is there," Paul told Fox Business Network. And if it is all there, he said, the public should know whether any of it has been obligated.

A spokeswoman told FoxNews.com the congressman wants to introduce the bill in September when Congress returns from recess.

Fort Knox claims billions of dollars worth of gold are stored away in its secret vault. The Fort Knox facility, a hyper-secure fortress in Kentucky that is part of quintessential American lore, is encased in 750 tons of reinforced steel, as well as thousands of cubic feet of concrete and granite. No visitors are allowed.

Though Paul no doubt wants a more thorough inspection, the U.S. Mint is subjected to regular audits, including at Fort Knox. The Mint claims gold is removed in "very small quantities" for this purpose alone, and that no other gold has been transferred in or out of the facility for a long time.

The latest audit, conducted by KPMG, did not appear to detail U.S. gold holdings -- dealing more with gold and silver sales, coin circulation, workplace environment and other issues -- but did state that gold and silver continue to be held at Fort Knox.

Scrutinizing U.S. monetary policy, though, is nothing new for Paul. Last year, he pushed on Capitol Hill a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, an effort that ended with a Fed audit provision tucked inside the financial
regulation package.

Paul, in an interview last week with industry publication Kitco News, first outlined his next campaign.

He said there is "reason to be suspicious" about U.S. gold holdings and suggested officials were manipulating the price of gold to prop up the perceived value of paper money. Paul said "it is a possibility" that neither Fort Knox nor the New York Federal Reserve vaults have any gold. He also said he will call for the U.S. government to legalize the use of gold and silver as "legal tender" alongside the U.S. dollar. Let them compete, he says.

"If people get tired of using the paper standard, they can deal in gold or silver," he told Kitco News.

Representatives from the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint did not respond to requests for comment on Paul's proposal.

Gold and silver investment
has drawn renewed attention amid concerns about the stability of the U.S. dollar. The United States moved away from the gold standard in the early 1970s, but Paul said it's good to know what the United States holds just in case. He warned the U.S. government is setting the stage for a depression by trying to print, spend and regulate its way out of the last recession.

"Who knows, someday we might want to have a gold standard
again and quit all this printing-press money, so it would be nice to know how much we have," Paul said in the interview with Fox Business Network.

120 Days Until Taxes Soar
Friday, 03 Sep 2010 10:33 AM Article Font Size     
By: Grover Norquist

From the ATR website.

In just 120 days, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011.

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011.

Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).

The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below.


The 10 percent bracket rises to an expanded 15 percent
The 25 percent bracket rises to 28 percent
The 28 percent bracket rises to 31 percent
The 33 percent bracket rises to 36 percent
The 35 percent bracket rises to 39.6 percent
The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1,000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care tax credit will be cut.

This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1, 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

The top capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The top dividends tax rate will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over 20 new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:

The Tanning Tax. This went into effect on July 1 of this year. It imposes a new, 10 percent excise tax on getting a tan at a tanning salon. There is no exemption for tanners making less than $250,000 per year.
The “Medicine Cabinet Tax” Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
Brand Name Drug Tax. Starting next year, there will be a multi-billion dollar tax assessment imposed on name-brand drug manufacturers. This tax, like all excise taxes, will raise the price of medicine, hurting everyone.
Economic Substance Doctrine. The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks “economic substance.” This is obviously an arbitrary empowerment of IRS agents.
Employer Reporting of Health Insurance Costs on a W-2. This will start for W-2s in the 2011 tax year. While not a tax increase in itself, it makes it very easy for Congress to tax employer-provided healthcare benefits later.

Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. The major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families — rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Small business expensing will be slashed and 50 percent expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be “depreciated.”
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax benefits for education and teaching reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Until this year, a retired person with an IRA could contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability will no longer be there.


© Newsmax. All rights reserved.

http://www.newsmax.com/GroverNorquist/Norquisttaxcutsexpire/2010/09/03/id/369166?s=al&promo_code=AAD5-1

this articles compare U.S. debts against Greece debts. it talks about how the U.S. is holding on to its AAA status, when its debts is in some case worse then Greece. here is the article. http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/02/news/economy/US_Treasury_debt_junk_status.fortune/index.htm

A few weeks ago, Hedgeye, the investment research firm where I'm a managing director, hosted a conference call for our subscribers that posed the question, "Should U.S. Government Debt Be Rated Junk Status?" Given that debt issued by the U.S. government continues to trade at almost all-time lows in yield, this is a contrarian call to say the least.

But while investors are willing to accept little in the way of return to own U.S. government debt and the U.S. has retained its AAA credit rating, the metrics by which we use to evaluate the balance sheet of the United States continue to deteriorate.

Typically, a bond receives junk status due to its increased risk of default, and therefore pays higher yields to the owners of the bonds to make up for the risk. In general, the owner of a bond is subject to many risks: interest rate risk, inflationary risks, currency risk, duration risk, and so forth. In this instance, as it relates to the United States, we are actually most concerned with the risk related to future repayment. Specifically, with projected deficits for at least the next fifty years, will the United States be able to repay its debt and, if so, on what terms?

The most newsworthy nation to currently be rated junk status is Greece. The 5-year credit default swaps for Greece, which reflect the amount an investor is willing to pay for insurance against a potential default, are currently trading at 916 basis points(bps) which is substantially above the levels of the United States. In fact, credit default swaps for the American government 5-year bonds are trading at 49bps which reflect the AAA bond rating status of the United States.

In contrast to the price of both yields and credit default swaps, the key ratios from which we use to analyze a nation appear very similar between the United States and Greece, despite their divergent credit ratings. Specifically, the key ratios are: debt as percentage of GDP, deficit as a percentage of GDP, and debt as a percentage of revenue. We've outlined a comparative analysis between a typical junk-rated sovereign issues, in this case Greece, and the United States.

The key ratios: Greece vs. United States

Deficit as % of GDP

    * US: 10.4%
    * Greece: 13.6%

Debt as % of GDP

    * US: 86.5% (including GSE debt: 121.6%)
    * Greece: 115.1%

Debt as % of revenue

    * US: 358.1%
    * Greece: 312.2%

Sources: Hedgeye, Morgan Stanley and CBO. 2009

On two of the ratios, the United States appears to do better than Greece, which is certainly a positive, but if we include the debt of government sponsored entities, or GSEs, the United States actually has a worse ratio than Greece.
0:00 /3:21European stress tests: 'A charade'?

It is also important though to consider the future when contemplating the pricing and rating of a nation's debt. Specifically, is it expected that the nation will be running future deficits, which require incremental debt funding? If so, our policymakers may have to implement policies designed to narrow this funding gap, typically known as austerity measures.

And the outlook of the United States is distressed to say the least. The Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S. budget out until 2035 under two scenarios. In both scenarios, the U.S. government will run a deficit through the projection period and require increased debt to fund the deficit. In the more aggressive scenario, in terms of larger deficits, debt as percentage of GDP nears 200% by the end of the projection period. Hedgeye actually believes that even the more aggressive scenario could understate future deficits.

Why it could be worse than the CBO thinks

The year-to-date budget numbers that we recently released for July highlight the primary driver of this deficit: spending. The July results from the U.S. Treasury Department indicate that the United States has been running a deficit for 22 straight months. When normalizing for TARP, which we consider a 1-time expenditure, spending for the first 10 months of the government's fiscal year is up an astonishing 10.4%.

Despite this, the U.S. government has not taken any aggressive austerity measures to attempt to narrow the current and projected deficits. In contrast, most European nations have taken aggressive actions on both the revenue -- increasing taxes -- and cost sides -- reducing government expenditures -- to get their fiscal houses in order.

For example in Greece the government is implementing a reduction in public spending of $30 billion euros, an increase in the age when pensions are distributed from 60 to 65, an increase in the VAT tax from 21% to 23%, and a stated deficit reduction target.

The result of the actions in Europe are that, in theory, future deficits should shrink and debt balances eventually decline. In contrast, under our current course, U.S. deficits will expand for decades.

So, should U.S. government debt be downgraded to junk status? If we simply look at the ratios and the future outlook, the answer is quite obvious. To top of page

I have been side stepping this for sometime,

As it didn't make much sence till we got some interest in it. But it does keep track of market varibles, such as increased demand, new company's, new mines, international news, currancy rates. It also has callers that call in asking good questions.

This one talking of the housing market amoung other issues. IT takes of foreclosures, and that 1 in 4 mortagags NOW...are in jepoardy of failing. thats an incrediable 11 million homes that are hurting. I would invest in companies that produce Tents!!!!
So if your really interested in what some of us are trying to do here, this is a good "LISTEN" for a change instead of "READ."

Just hit the little green Bar below the pictures of the hosts.

Radio.GoldSeek.com Sept. 3 2010
"Weekly Report."
http://radio.goldseek.com/