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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: UncleBigs who wrote (54242)	2/19/2006 11:03:00 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 110194

Have you looked at the participation rate? It has NEVER gone down in a recovery before. If jobs were scortching why would we be bitching at China for stealing our jobs? I do not have a good answer for tax collections. People taking on second jobs just to scrape by? Year end bonuses skewed on the high end and not helping the marginal person in trouble? Some sort of outlier? Just another "haves vs. Have Nots" kind of thing? Some sort of combination of things? Mish

To: UncleBigs who wrote (54242)	2/19/2006 12:04:56 PM
From: arun gera	Respond to of 110194

>Something else is going on. Unemployment claims are also very low. The labor market appears tight and wage increases are taking off> Job market is tightening. The boomers are closer to retirement and not enough graduates out of high school and college. It is the beginning of a ten-year trend. The pressure is at the high end of the wages and not at the bottom. A mid-level executive who receives a 10 K raise because of tightening wages over-compensates for 5 others who get one fifth his salary. There is a huge population of illegals that would benefit if Amnesty was granted. It will become necessary to do that in the next 3-5 years. That will rein in the wages in skilled sector. Also, increase demand for housing. And spread the taxes over a wider pool. -Arun

To: UncleBigs who wrote (54242)	2/19/2006 6:05:01 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Maybe the IRS is just enforcing better. They've put a lot of tax protesters away under Bush. Underground cash economy is a lot harder these days w/everything electronic...

To: UncleBigs who wrote (54242)	2/20/2006 6:09:20 AM
From: basho	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Tax collections certainly are growing rapidly but it's probably worth putting them in historical perspective. The high ($1004.5 billion) in individual tax collections was reached in the fiscal year ending Sept 2000. They then fell to a low of $793.7 billion in 2003 and the Sept 2005 year finished with $927.5 billion. The latest projection for fiscal year 2006 is $997.6 billion. So, two things. Even though they're growing rapidly, they still haven't reached the highs of 5 years ago. Secondly, the previous high coincided pretty well with the start of the last downturn in both economy and markets so there's no reason to think it necessarily points to either stronger markets or economy ahead. P.S. Overall tax receipts did reach a new high in fiscal year 2005 thanks to higher SS receipts and corporate taxes.