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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (108007)	1/24/2012 10:28:04 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Mitt Romney earned $21.7 million in 2010 and paid nearly $3 million in taxes at a rate of slightly less than 14 percent, according to an early preview of the documents provided by the Romney campaign to several media outlets early Tuesday morning. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that Mitt earned more then 75 times as much as me and paid taxes at less than half the rate that I paid. Ya think the system is stacked in favor of the very wealthy?

To: bentway who wrote (108007)	1/25/2012 3:27:13 PM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 149317

FOMC 1/25: Welcome To Japan Oh my..... For immediate release Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately, notwithstanding some slowing in global growth. While indicators point to some further improvement in overall labor market conditions, the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending has continued to advance, but growth in business fixed investment has slowed, and the housing sector remains depressed. Inflation has been subdued in recent months, and longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable. In other words there's nothing really going on here that tells us much. Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee expects economic growth over coming quarters to be modest and consequently anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually toward levels that the Committee judges to be consistent with its dual mandate. Strains in global financial markets continue to pose significant downside risks to the economic outlook. The Committee also anticipates that over coming quarters, inflation will run at levels at or below those consistent with the Committee's dual mandate. No pressure in the labor market and none in the others either. To support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with the dual mandate, the Committee expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy. In particular, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and currently anticipates that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014. 2014?! Now we've moved the bar again -- another year. The Committee also decided to continue its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities as announced in September. The Committee is maintaining its existing policies of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction. The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability. Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Dennis P. Lockhart; Sandra Pianalto; Sarah Bloom Raskin; Daniel K. Tarullo; John C. Williams; and Janet L. Yellen. Voting against the action was Jeffrey M. Lacker, who preferred to omit the description of the time period over which economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate. So basically The Fed is stuck. It has no indications of economic pickup, but at the same time it's blasted at the zero boundary. The result is, basically Japan. Remember two things: 1) Bernanke said he would not get trapped in this box and 2) Japan's stock market never recovered when Japan got trapped. This is very, very bad for equity multiples as continued financial repression, now marked out two more years, means The Fed sees a recession this year (as do I) and they're concerned we will not be able to finance our fiscal profligacy. So what The Fed is doing is telling Congress it has two years to get its act together but it won't be able to without *provoking* the recession that is on the way, deepening it materially. This has extended the "boom" point for the government a bit, but it has also thrown down the marker for equities. In short, *it's time to shorten your leash and be prepared for a final price on equities over the next several years 20-25% of where they are today.* No, not all at once, but all in time as repression destroys margins in the financial sector and compresses multiples through the market. Yuck.