You were being sarcastic to me? *blink* Say it isn’t so!

And you think those “millionaire taxes” will be an impediment to working hard and desires for success? Oh my, you underestimate the vanity of the wealthy! In NY and NJ they would kill their mothers to be able to complain about paying the “millionaire’s tax” – loudly, and in public!

People will work harder just to tell people they pay that tax. People are crazy there, what can I say?!

Alternately, you can save a buck or two and head down to South Carolina. I hear their governor is very fiscally motivated.

Peace.
Me.

So what if NYC is a “desirable location” that “stretches you econommically”? Kitty is 100% correct. $250k in NYC is no where near comparable with $250k in say northern Maine.

BTW, did you hear that NJ and NY are considering imposing a “millionaire tax” on people making $250k?

That does real good for motivating someone try hard and succeed.

No one believed Joe but he was oh so right!

I was being sarcastic to Rick. I’m not getting $13/wk, just like I didn’t get any stimulus checks last year. And I’m really afraid the Messiah is going to take away a certain important tax credit I am counting on for my 2009 taxes!

Thank you very much for your comments, and your comments about China are absolutely correct. It is my belief that China was consulted on the budget before Obama put it in front of congress.

I also think it is terrific to see people arguing about elements of the budget in its working form, but realize this is the first step in a process. Proclaiming the whole thing a fiasco (or a godsend) based on the first draft is probably a bit premature.

Your comments about corporate taxes are interesting. On its face value it sounds convincing, but the liberal pubs are spinning it differently.

In so far as your comments about 250k in NYC, I understand your comments, but like everything there are two sides. For example, I could argue that you live in a very desirable location, and just because it stretches you economically does not make you “less rich”. But before you think I embrace that opinion, please note I’m a flat tax (with slight scaling) kind of guy.

Anyhow, lovely chatting with you.
Rick Beagle

BTW – I voted against Bush both times, although I did vote for Reagan and against Obama. I am neither a republican nor a democrat, and I decide based on issues. I have mixed feelings on stimulus and bailout packages, but I do think the budget is bloated and has a lot of stuff we cannot afford now, as well as stuff that is going to hurt investment. Does Obama need to deliver on all his budget promises at once? Does he need all of this massive spending in his budget at this point when a lot of money is already spent on trying to get the economy going again? Certain things he wants to do may be nice, but why not postpone them until the time the US government actually has more people working and bringing in revenue? Or maybe the US savings rate is sufficiently high again that more Americans are buying government bonds than Chinese? And is raising taxes on businesses corporations that give jobs to people or on investors whose help he needs to buy bad assets is a good way to stimulate the economy and investment? Also, is a family of a couple of engineers with two kids living in NYC and earning 250K really rich? What about a small business?

The situation now is very different from the time of Reagan or even from 10 years ago. At that time most of the US bonds were owned by the US citizens – so government’s interest went back to the US citizens who paid federal taxes on the income back to the government. Now it’s Chinese. The US citizens may be happy to lend the US government money for some things. Chinese is a different story entirely. Chinese may be willing to lend us money for spending that will stimulate the economy and help them too. But other items in the budget is quite another matter. If Chinese don’t want to finance these things, they’ll refuse to buy our government bonds. Then the rates will go up and we’ll get inflation. This is what makes this budget so dangerous.

For the record – I may be of a baby boomer generation (49), but as I spent first 19 years in the Soviet Union, I am not technically a “baby boomer”.

Personally, I’m relatively young (26) and have been paying debts from college and the costs of starting a career, and only recently started saving significant amounts. All the stock I have is compensation from my employment. I’ve been learning about the market with the intention of getting in eventually, and as someone who’s still basically an outsider, I can’t imagine taking cash from my safe and sound bank and CD accounts and putting it into the market right now. By several strong indications which you yourself mentioned, the DJI has something like another 2 to 3 THOUSAND left to fall before hitting historical prices, and that’s assuming it won’t over-correct.

If you think it’s going to be even half that bad, it seems like it shouldn’t matter how much you’ve lost in the past 6 months, you should be out NOW. At the very least, sell everything now and dollar-cost average yourself back in on the way to the bottom. So what’s your plan? Are you practicing what you preach? If you’re still holding on to what you’ve got, what’s your reasoning?