< Bush wants to buy my vote by giving me back the money that the dems stole.>
Please get real. President Bush's much vaunted "tax cuts", will evaporate in a maelstrom of state and local tax hikes of all descriptions. California is staring at a $US 35 Billion deficit over the next 18 months. New York state revenues were down 15.6% in the nine months to June 2002 and the state now faces a $US 2.5 Billion deficit in this year's budget. Texas projects a $US 9.9 Billion deficit by September 2005. Illinois faces a deficit of $US 4.8 Billion, New Jersey's is $US 5 Billion. The list goes on.
The 50 US state governments are in fast deepening financial trouble. In 2002, they found that their state income was "short" about $US 67 Billion compared to their expenditures. For 2003, they are expected to find their state budgets "short" by $US 65-80 Billion, which comes to 13-18% of their combined budgets!
The response at the state and local government level across the United States has been to RAISE TAXES. In Chicago, property owners have just seen property tax increases of between 75-100%. As a result, rental costs have exploded. New York City has hammered property taxes up by 18.5% to 28.6%. In Atlanta, the city elders slammed property taxes up 50% over the past year. Even in Minnesota, the take on property is up by 10% over the past year with more to come. According to the US Census Bureau, property taxes were up by 10.4% over the past year. Over the first six months of 2002, property taxes climbed nationwide by 14.1 %. What is economically certain in regard to the above is that taxes on real property have climbed MUCH faster than have American real incomes.
Why the US economic stimulus package? Here are some reasons: Public approval of his handling of the US economy has fallen to 47%. Forty-six states are in budget trouble with state deficits at 50-year highs. California has announced a projected deficit of $US 35 Billion for the next 18 months. Under new accounting standards to be applied this year, the p/e ratio of the S&P 500 (as of June 30), publicly stated to be 24, was actually 48.6. As of Nov. 1, US federal government revenues were down 12.1% with spending up 5.1%. Twelve out of every 1000 mortgaged homes are now in foreclosure - up 33% from a year ago. HALF of all paid US workers have no retirement savings of any kind. The list goes on.
This is precisely what the Japanese government began to do -more than ten years ago in mid 1992. The result, for Japan, has been a government deficit to GDP ratio which is now (at least) 140% and, judging by Japan's most recent budget, will climb towards the 170% level by early 2004. These stimulus packages have done precisely NOTHING to aid either Japan's economy nor its financial markets. "No matter", says Bernanke, Greenspan, and now Bush, "they'll work for us!"
The US now requires $US 2.5 Billion per day to fund its external deficit. The latest "budget" assures budget deficits to the annual tune of up to $US 500-600 Billion. The US Treasury is urgently trying to have its $US 6.4 TRILLION debt ceiling raised. Now you see WHY the US establishment wants war.
Top-level political men in the US, scared beyond measure of what they know is behind them, are charging blindly, in a panic, into a self-made foreign war before them.
The Bush Administration's solution to all these problems is to increase US Assets, that is to say, to go to War with Iraq and Take Over their Oil Reserves. I consider that to be thievery.
Yes, Iraq sits on 112-200 billion barrels of oil. Every barrel is an economic asset! If the US were to "acquire" or gain control of these assets, which presently don't belong to them, then implicitly, the US would have added the Iraqi oil to its global balance sheet. Then it would be in a position to tell foreigners to stop selling US Denominated Assets.
A point is close to being reached where it will be the Americans themselves who discover that they, and their own nation, have been politically hijacked into an global imperial enterprise.
When that happens, the US political establishment will stand NAKED, with no place to run or hide. |
