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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Credit in all of its forms and how it's permeated every facet of life is the real cancer in this country.

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Originally posted by second:
P.S. I wrote a $20,000 check to stop the foreclosure. Next year I'm not saving this Trumptard from his stupidity. And I am not writing a check in Feb 2028 for the balloon payment of $148,216.80. https://www.calculator.net/payment-calculator.html

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by second:
P.S. I wrote a $20,000 check to stop the foreclosure. Next year I'm not saving this Trumptard from his stupidity. And I am not writing a check in Feb 2028 for the balloon payment of $148,216.80. https://www.calculator.net/payment-calculator.html

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You did no such thing.

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Originally posted by second:
The cancer eating up America is NOT debt.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by second:
The cancer eating up America is NOT debt.

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I didn't say that the cancer is debt. I said the cancer is credit.

Your entire anecdote is a lie. Nobody cares.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by second:
The cancer eating up America is NOT debt.

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I didn't say that the cancer is debt. I said the cancer is credit.

Your entire anecdote is a lie. Nobody cares.

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6ix, you got fired from every job and dumped by your girlfriends because you are an asshole. It is pretty clear you misunderstand debt, loans, credit, mortgages, promissory notes, bonds, rent-to-own, and anything about owing money. (Owing is cancer, if you're stupid.) Trump is as dumb about money as you are. Thirty bond underwriters turned him down because they found him untrustworthy.

Trump’s lawyers say it is impossible for him to post bond (because he is an asshole)
https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-bond-appeal-million-75ef3efb5b7
0d6ea43bea85b65ff7810

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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US consumers paid almost 50 per cent more in credit card expenses last year than in 2020, the year before President Joe Biden took office, putting pressure on family budgets and firing up an election issue about what Republicans say is a cost of living crisis.

Credit card interest and fees increased by $51bn in that time to $157bn, according to data provided by US banks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Delinquencies on credit card loans are also running at their highest level in almost 13 years, according to data from Moody’s Analytics, even as banks have reported record profits from credit card lending.

The rise in credit card costs has come as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates to a 23-year high but lenders have pushed consumer borrowing rates higher still. The central bank, which meets on Wednesday, is not expected to begin cutting rates until this summer.

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A quarter of tenants — about 12 million households — now spend more than half their income on rent. Prices are so high that if a minimum-wage employee worked 45 hours a week for a month, a median rent would consume every dollar he or she made.

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Originally posted by second:
America’s Magical Thinking About Housing

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Housing is a pit of oxymoronic thinking. The Wall Street Journal tells its readers that it’s bad when rents go up but also bad when rents go down. The Democratic Party platform says homes have to be affordable and also that they ought to appreciate faster than the rate of inflation. Americans in research surveys say that if grain yields surge, grain prices go down, but that if housing construction surges, housing costs go up.

I’m listing these examples not to be despondent about the prospects for housing abundance, but rather to be realistic. Housing is, in fact, both a present need and a future investment. In a dual-side marketplace, I suppose you could argue that any change in price is bad for some party. But the externalities of housing abundance outweigh the loss to any particular party rooting to profit from scarcity. More and denser housing has been found to reduce inequality and raise personal income; to increase individual exercise rates and reduce obesity; to limit carbon emissions and preserve thousands of acres of natural splendor; and even to increase productivity and innovation.

The miracle of Austin is helpful to recognize, because it restores clarity to a simple truth: Houses are essential, but they are not magical. The normal rules of supply and demand apply. Perhaps more blue cities and states should make a point of applying those rules—and build more damn homes.

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Since 2019, the overall cost of groceries has increased 1.5% more than average wages.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't believe the Feds inflation figures. Real life tell me things have gotten a lot more expensive than when Trump was in office.

But, let's say they're correct.

Those graphs don't prices. It's price CHANGE.
And what they say is that, except for 2008 and some brief later periods where the prices dropped (line falls below zero) prices have relentlessly gone UP. Sometimes prices ripped higher at a 10% clip, and sometimes they muddled along at 2.5%, but up they went, month after month.

2.5% inflation may not seem like much, but compounded over 15 years means prices will be approximately 40% higher.

*****

In any case, if oil prices stay high or we start a trade war with China, we can expect to be paying a lot more just around election time.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Scandal Rocks Biden's Labor Dept For Lying About Sharing Non-Public Inflation Data With Secret Group Of Wall Street "Super Users"

... In retrospect, it appears the BLS really did have something to hide, because in a follow up from both the NYT and Bloomberg, we now learn that an economist from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was corresponding on data related the monthly CPI print with major firms like JPMorgan and BlackRock, in what Bloomberg said "raised questions about equitable access to economic information." ...

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't believe the Feds inflation figures. Real life tell me things have gotten a lot more expensive than when Trump was in office.

But, let's say they're correct.

Those graphs don't prices. It's price CHANGE.
And what they say is that, except for 2008 and some brief later periods where the prices dropped (line falls below zero) prices have relentlessly gone UP. Sometimes prices ripped higher at a 10% clip, and sometimes they muddled along at 2.5%, but up they went, month after month.

2.5% inflation may not seem like much, but compounded over 15 years means prices will be approximately 40% higher.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't believe the Feds inflation figures. Real life tell me things have gotten a lot more expensive than when Trump was in office.

But, let's say they're correct.

Those graphs don't prices. It's price CHANGE.
And what they say is that, except for 2008 and some brief later periods where the prices dropped (line falls below zero) prices have relentlessly gone UP. Sometimes prices ripped higher at a 10% clip, and sometimes they muddled along at 2.5%, but up they went, month after month.

2.5% inflation may not seem like much, but compounded over 15 years means prices will be approximately 40% higher.

*****

In any case, if oil prices stay high or we start a trade war with China, we can expect to be paying a lot more just around election time.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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And the much higher rate than 2% over the last 3 years compounded has raised the prices of everything substantially. Though wages have not kept up at all with the rise in price of goods in that time, they have gone up... in some places like California they've gone up quite a bit, particularly among the low wage earners.

What nobody talks about is that the Government doesn't take less taxes here. They take more. Not only do they get more taxes because of the higher wages per hour themselves, but caps on programs and tax savings haven't gone up to match the new wages.

The Federal Standard Deduction (the amount of money you don't pay taxes on if you don't itemize) only went up $750 this year from last. If somebody is only making $750 more than they made last year, they're not keeping up with any rise in prices on anything, let alone their monthly apartment rent.

This should have gone up THOUSANDS every year for the last few years.

Single people making less than $14,600 and married people making less than $29,200, assuming they've got even the most basic level of responsibility, are the people who are using what they make only to live.

At this point, I believe that no single person making less than $30,000 or a married couple making less than $60,000 should have to pay any Federal Taxes. They're already paying 7.65% on Social Security and Medicare on dollar one, and the company they work for is paying them 7.65% less than they would have otherwise because they're "paying" the other half for you.

If they own a house they're paying property taxes. If they rent, the owner is paying premium rental property taxes and you're paying for a portion of that with your rent check. If you drive a car you're paying yearly registration taxes. Anything you buy, with some rare exceptions like food in a number of states, you're paying sales taxes on it.

If the government cares at all about people, especially people in the lower quintile, They'd really ought to double that standard deduction in 2025.

Somebody who made $30,000 per year would have an additional $1,500 to help pay the higher costs of everything. Somebody making only $20,000 per year would still get another $500.

EIC limits should be reevaluated as well. If you were to double the gross dollar amount somebody needed to earn for the peak EIC credit today, it would be between $15,600 and $19,600 (Up from $7,800-$9,800). If you doubled the gross dollar amount they needed to earn to price themselves out of EIC, you'd be at $35,200 (up from $17,600). Now double the amount of EIC credit for each $50 amount of income on the tables...

Under the above circumstances Somebody who earns between $15,900 and $19,600 gross would receive a $1,200 credit. On the low end, somebody who earned only $1 would get a $4 EIC Credit, and on the high end somebody who earned between $35,150 and $35,200 would get a $10 EIC credit.



Person A earning $30,000 per year or a married couple earning $60,000 per year would benefit quite greatly under both of the above circumstances.

Not only would they be saving $1,500 on Federal Income Taxes, but they'd also get a $400 earned income credit. That is $1,900 more for that person to pay for essentials with.

Person B only making $20,000 in a year would only save that $500 on their Federal Income Taxes, but their EIC credit would be $1,166 (Doubled from the current $583 one would get at $10,000). So their income tax benefit would be $1,666.

So even though Person A made 33% more than Person B did this year, their additional tax savings from these changes would only be 14.04% more than Person B, illustrating the natural phase out of benefits remains intact... just at higher levels.


How does this affect the people at the top of this low income and everyone above it?

Well, anyone making more than $30,000 per year would have saved an additional $1,500 in Federal Income Taxes. Even if you made $400,000, you saved that $1,500 because you didn't start hitting the 10% tax bracket until twice what it was the year prior.

And the EIC payment would cap out with only a $10 EIC credit for a person earning between $35,150 and $35,200, and anybody making more than this doesn't get an EIC Credit.

I realize at the top earner levels a lot of people don't need that $1,500 and it shouldn't be a change that benefits everyone. But I say instead of make any changes here let everyone making over $30,000 get that $1,500 benefit but just raise some taxes that only the top earners feel by $1,500 to offset it.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Obviously, This Is Very Bad News For Biden": Wall Street Reacts To Today's Red Hot Inflation Print
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/obviously-very-bad-news-biden-wall-s
treet-reacts-todays-red-hot-inflation-print

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
ChatGPT is worthless. Because it follows the "large language" model, all it can do is tell you what people are talking about "out there".

Ask it whether angels are real, or whether Russia will invade Europe, or whether climate changeis real, and you'll probably get a "balanced" argument on both sides of the question, without any real evidence or predictive model to back it up. If not, you'll get a "consensus" answer, again, without any real evidence or predictive, real world model to back it up.

AI is no substitute for understanding.
It follows the old GIGO computer rule: garbage in, garbge out.

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Biden spending to build back stagflation

https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/biden-spending-to-build-back-stagfla
tion-202111161956]

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Pay attention now.

T

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Resurgent inflation looms over Joe Biden’s White House bid
Consumer prices are rising quickly at just the wrong time for the US president

https://www.ft.com/content/d8520a33-f202-4679-b6f7-99fe9e4fb3ae?segmen
tId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9


The FED cannot lower rates. Inflation will just pick up if they do. It already is without a rate cut. They should actually be talking about raising rates again, not lowering them. We haven't even felt the impact of that Baltimore bridge collapse on the system yet either.

This isn't over. And with the election coming up all Joe Biden* can hope for is that the FED manages just to not make anything worse until election day. Trump will be left with a lot of bullshit to juggle after 4 years of this idiocy.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Chances are a lot more of the people being hurt by Democrats are the low-income Democrat voters than anyone else.

I've told you this before.

You don't have enough rich, white, college "educated" voters to carry the party.

And any of you fools still listening to Paul Krugman after he's been proven wrong about every article he's written in the last 3 years will get what you deserve.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Chances are a lot more of the people being hurt by Democrats are the low-income Democrat voters than anyone else.

I've told you this before.

You don't have enough rich, white, college "educated" voters to carry the party.

And any of you fools still listening to Paul Krugman after he's been proven wrong about every article he's written in the last 3 years will get what you deserve.

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Chocolate-lovers are being hurt by Biden. It is an outrage!

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Commerce Department indexes that the Fed relies on heavily for inflation signals showed prices continuing to climb at a rate still considerably higher than the 2% annual goal.
The stubborn inflation data raised several ominous specters, namely that the Fed may have to keep rates elevated for longer or even have to hike at some point.

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The inflation problem in the U.S. today first emerged in 2022, and had multiple sources.

At the beginning of the flare-up, the issues came largely from supply chain disruptions that Fed officials thought would go away once shippers and manufacturers had the chance to catch up as pandemic restrictions eased.

But even with the Covid economic crisis well in the rearview mirror, Congress and the Biden administration continue to spend lavishly, with the budget deficit at 6.2% of GDP at the end of 2023. That’s the highest outside of the Covid years since 2012 and a level generally associated with economic downturns, not expansions.

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Originally posted by second:
Affluent Americans are driving US economy and likely delaying need for Fed rate cuts

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER | April 29, 2024

https://apnews.com/article/inflation-economy-wealth-rates-federal-rese
rve-cuts-9290216e89cbd7a3a0d2be66041aeaf8

Older Americans are fueling a sustained boost to the U.S. economy and inflation. Benefiting from outsize gains in the stock and housing markets over the past several years, they are accounting for a larger share of consumer spending — the principal driver of economic growth and inflation — than ever before.

And much of their spending is going toward higher-priced services like travel, health care and entertainment, putting further upward pressure on those prices — and on inflation. Such spending is relatively immune to the Federal Reserve’s push to slow growth and tame inflation through higher borrowing rates, because it rarely requires borrowing.

Affluent older Americans, if they own government bonds, may even be benefiting from the Fed’s rate hikes. Those hikes have led to higher bond yields, generating more income for those who own such bonds.

The so-called “wealth effect,” whereby rising home and stock values give people confidence to increase their spending, is a big reason why the economy has defied expectations of a sharp slowdown. Its unexpected strength, which is contributing to stickier inflation, has forced a shift in the Fed’s plans.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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This woman heard Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, the largest bank in America on the Wall Street Journal’s podcast

What she heard was so “f*cking out of touch” with America she had to stop what she was doing & make this video

He said this about America:

Question asked to him, “As the chief exec of America's biggest bank, you have an unrivaled insight into the financial health of the US consumer. What are people doing with their money right now?”

Jamie Dimon’s response “Yeah, you have to look a little bit in context. The consumer's in pretty good shape right now. The consumer has, you know, unemployment under 4% has been there for two years. They still have excess money from COVID. — They're still spending it down. Housing prices are up, stock prices are up, jobs are plentiful.”

Creator: “I'm sorry, what? The stimulus checks, the ones that went out in 2020 and 2021, three and four years ago, we're still spending it down? Who is he talking about? People are not doing well. This country is literally unaffordable. Child care, groceries, you've got Kellogs out here telling us to eat fucking cereal for dinner.

Everything is up in price. Even for those who are making ends meet and are able to still save, we have to be conscious as fuck to where you're putting your money because nothing is at a good price.

What does he mean the consumer is doing well? Like these are the biggest decision makers in our financial systems. These are the people who work with Congress and who are talking about how do we create like a soft landing of inflation and He thinks we're doing okay. Like, guys, this is scary. I mean, it's been f*cking scary. Let's be real. No one's surprised”

The CEO of the largest bank in America still thinks you have money from your Covid checks…. It’s almost unfathomable how out of touch with reality these people are.

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