Martes 20/09/11 Empieza reunion Fed, Italia recibe downgrade

[admin]

Eventos economicos

Martes

Comienza la reunion del Fed
Ventas de teindas
Inicios de casas
Libro rojo
Subasta de bonos

FOMC Meeting Begins


ICSC-Goldman Store Sales
7:45 AM ET


Housing Starts
8:30 AM ET


Redbook
8:55 AM ET


4-Week Bill Auction
11:30 AM ET


52-Week Bill Auction
11:30 AM ET

[admin]

Italia recibe un downgrade, outlook negativo, su economia esta debil, cito S&P.

Grecia sigue la conferencia telefonica con el IMF y la EU. Maniana debe haber un anuncio, esperemos positivo.

[admin]

Treasurys Price Chg Yield %
2-Year Note* 1/32 0.162
10-Year Note* 30/32 1.949
* at close

9:07 p.m. EDT 09/19/11Futures Last Change Settle
Crude Oil 85.76 0.06 85.70
Gold 1781.0 2.1 1778.9
E-mini Dow 11281 -42 11323
E-mini S&P 500 1193.50 -4.25 1197.75

9:17 p.m. EDT 09/19/11Currencies Last (bid) Prior Day †
Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) 76.56 76.59
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.3645 1.3686
† Late Monday in New York.

[admin]

Copper September 19,20:59
Bid/Ask 3.8286 - 3.8292
Change +0.0291 +0.77%
Low/High 3.7899 - 3.8303
Charts

Nickel September 19,20:59
Bid/Ask 9.5734 - 9.6242
Change +0.0340 +0.36%
Low/High 9.5394 - 9.6301
Charts

Aluminum September 19,20:59
Bid/Ask 1.0407 - 1.0415
Change +0.0010 +0.10%
Low/High 1.0393 - 1.0415
Charts

Zinc September 19,20:57
Bid/Ask 0.9498 - 0.9502
Change +0.0040 +0.42%
Low/High 0.9435 - 0.9502
Charts

Lead September 19,19:59
Bid/Ask 1.0581 - 1.0613
Change +0.0000 +0.00%
Low/High 1.0581 - 1.0613

[admin]

Geithner: Europa seguira las lecciones de US, adoptara las mismas medidas de US durante la crisis del 2008.

[admin]

Yen up 76.54

Los futures del Dow Jones 63 puntos a la baja.

El Asia a la baja.

Euro down 1.3639

El Nikkei -1.43%, Australia -0.26%, Korea +0.22%

Oil up 85.84

Au down 1,778.60

[admin]

Esto es lo que yo no entiendo, es que los gobernantes rodeados de todos sus genios como Buffett y todo el equipo y demas no miden las consecuencias de las medidas que toman? realmente a veces pienso que es una burla, la politica es realmente una burla, es un insulto a la inteligencia de las minorias, creo que solo se preocupan del cociente intelectual de los que no estan informados y los demas que se fastidien, simplemente nos ignoran. Que horror!!!

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El impuesto a los millonarios es mas facil de decir que hacer

El tratar de cobrarle a los millonarios mas impuestos probara ser logisticamente y matematicamente imposible.

El impuesto sera problematico implementar e inefectivo por que los millonarios no son los unicos que se benefician de las excepciones de impuestos, muchos contribuyentes de la clase media tambien gozan de las mismas excepciones y creditos que hacen que los impuestos sean menores del 17.4% que Buffett paga.

Tomemos el ejemplo que dio Obama que el que gana 500,000 no debe pagar menos impuestos que el profesor que gana $50,000. Actualmente el profesor tiene un tope de impuesto de $40,500, despues de sustraer la deduccion standar y la excepcion personal. El impuesto federal al ingreso del profesor es $6,250 o 12.5% de los $50,000 de ingreso. (lo que prueba que tanto Obama como Buffett son unos mentirosos, o ignorantes o se hacen los locos pensando que no nos damos cuenta de su juego, increible)

Ademas, si el profesor tiene otras deducciones como del plan de retiro o si es casado y tiene dependientes, paga aun menos impuestos. Es mas si es casado y tiene hijos no pagara impuestos por ingresos de $45,776. (ese es el 50% de mantenidos que no paga impuestos en este pais)

Millionaire Tax’ Seen Easier Said Than Done
By Richard Rubin - Sep 19, 2011 3:34 PM ET .
Obama `Millionaire Tax' Is Seen Easier Said Than Done Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

Writing the new “Buffett rule” proposed by President Barack Obama to snare more tax revenue from millionaires will prove to be logistically and mathematically difficult.

The concept, named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, would require Americans earning more than $1 million a year to pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class households. Such a rule would be problematical to craft or ineffectual because higher earners aren’t the only taxpayers benefiting from breaks; many middle-income families take advantage of deductions and credits that drive their rates below the 17.4 percent that Buffett pays.

Buffett has said he and other Americans earning more than $1 million a year should pay more in taxes than they currently do. The administration wants to include Buffett’s concept in a broad overhaul of the U.S. tax code. Obama didn’t include specific language in the proposal he released today.

“We’re not going to give the Congress a detailed proposal for how to meet that principle because we think there are a bunch of different ways to do that,” said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, adding that the details of the rule would depend on the rest of the structure of a new tax system.

‘Game-Changer’
Charles Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said on a conference call with reporters today that the proposal would have broad support in his party and would be a “game-changer” in the tax debate.

“It really works well as a defining principle, but I think it works even better as an actual piece of legislation,” Schumer, a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee, said. “Let’s draft the language and get it scored. Let’s put it on the floor and let’s have a vote.”

The example that Obama gave during his speech today illustrated the difficulty of applying the Buffett principle in practice. He said that a teacher earning $50,000 shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than an investor making $50 million.

“I reject the idea that asking a hedge-fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare,” Obama said at the White House. “It’s just the right thing to do.”

That example isn’t as straightforward as it appears. Under current law, that teacher would have a maximum taxable income of $40,500, after subtracting the standard deduction and personal exemption. The teacher’s federal income tax would be $6,250, or 12.5 percent of the $50,000 income.

Specific Breaks
The teacher’s tax rate, though, would be higher if payroll taxes were included. It would be lower if the teacher took advantage of the specific breaks available to middle-income taxpayers: those for retirement savings contributions and health-care flexible spending arrangements, and deductions for student loan interest and out-of-pocket expenses of educators.

The tax rate would be even lower if the teacher were married or had children, which would allow for a larger standard deduction, personal exemptions and a child tax credit. A married couple with two children can earn as much as $45,776 without paying income taxes this year, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington research group.

Making Choices
As a result of those complexities, lawmakers trying to write a Buffett rule would have to make some choices about how to measure a middle-income family’s earnings and tax rate. They also face complicated arithmetic for higher-income taxpayers.

Assuming the millionaire investor received all of his or her income from long-term capital gains and dividends, the tax rate would be 15 percent, the preferential rate for investment income.

That rate could be much lower if the investor took itemized deductions for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. It would be higher if the investor also had some wage income.

Writing a Buffett rule into law would require defining income and setting a minimum rate for it, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow affiliated with the Tax Policy Center. That definition might need to address sources of income, such as municipal bond interest, that aren’t included under the regular income tax.

‘Opening the Door’
“Every time you set up something like this, you’re opening the door for the tax lawyers to come in and get around the attempt to raise revenues,” Williams said.

Obama’s prime target for what he calls income-tax fairness is the 20-point gap between the top rate for capital gains and ordinary income tax rates.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed an overhaul of the tax code that equalized the tax rates on capital gains and ordinary income at 28 percent. Since then, Congress has raised the top income tax rate to 35 percent and dropped the top capital gains rate to 15 percent.

During a briefing at the White House today, Geithner said the rates of high-income taxpayers vary depending on their profession.

People who earn much of their income from wages, such as corporate executives and professional athletes, have relatively high tax rates. Investors who make money from capital gains and dividends tend to have lower rates.

Buffett, the 81-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said his federal tax bill last year, or the income tax he paid and payroll taxes paid by him and on his behalf, was $6.93 million.

‘Lower Percentage’
“That sounds like a lot of money,” Buffett wrote in an essay calling for higher taxes on millionaires in The New York Times last month. “But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income -- and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office.”

Several bipartisan groups, including the fiscal commission appointed by Obama last year, have proposed eliminating the preferential tax rates for capital gains as part of a tax overhaul that would also lower rates on wage income.

That approach, rather than the calculation of a minimum tax, might be the most straightforward way to satisfy the Buffett principle, Williams said.

“That certainly makes it a lot easier,” he said. “But a lot of people would oppose that on the argument that there are good reasons to tax capital income at lower rates.”

The arguments for lower capital gains rates include the benefits of encouraging investment, and tax economists say that lower dividend rates minimize the double taxation of income already taxed at the corporate level.

Minimum Tax
The Buffett rule would essentially operate as a type of alternative minimum tax.

Since 1969, the U.S. has imposed a minimum tax of some sort on the nation’s highest earners to prevent them from using legal deductions, credits and exemptions to avoid paying taxes. That year, in response to a report that 155 people earning more than $200,000 had paid no taxes, Congress created the forerunner to the alternative minimum tax.

The AMT came into its current form in the 1986 tax-code overhaul. It requires taxpayers to compare their tax liability under the regular tax code with their liability under the AMT. Because the AMT doesn’t allow taxpayers the full benefits of the state and local tax deduction or personal exemptions, people with large families or who live in high-tax states in the Northeast tend to be disproportionately affected.

Congressional lawmakers’ efforts to prevent people from legally avoiding all taxes haven’t been successful. In 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, 18,783 people filed U.S. tax returns with adjusted gross incomes of at least $200,000 and owed no taxes. That represented 0.43 percent of high-income taxpayers, the biggest non-payer percentage in an Internal Revenue Service study that dates to 1977.

[admin]

Chavez prohibio las exportaciones de oro.

[admin]

Tomorrow’s Tape: Oracle Speaks

Economics:

8:30 a.m. ET: August housing-starts data due from the Commerce Department. From bad to worse, likely.
The Fed starts its two-day policy meeting.
Earnings:

Carnival
AutoZone
Adobe Systems
Oracle
ConAgra
European foolishness:

The Conference Call to Save the World continues.

[admin]

El impuesto de Buffett
Los ricos no pagan menos impuestos que los demas

Obama ha repetido casi todos los errores economicos de los anios 30 en los ultimos anios, solo es normal que se repita uno de 1960 tambien? Nos referimos al impuesto de Obama "Buffett Rule" de aumentar los impuestos a los Americanos que ganan mas de $1 millon al anio. Esto le sonara familiar a los lectores de cierta edad, por que es cuando nacion el Alternative Minim Tax empezo (impuesto minimo alternativo)

En 1969, Joe Barr, el secretario del Tesoro de la epoca se presento al congreso a denunciar que 21 millonarios no habian pagado impuesos en 1967. No menos de 115 declaraciones de impuestos reportaron ingresos arriba de $200,000 tampoco habian pagado impuestos y Barr predijo que habria una protesta nacional si no se hacia algo al respecto.

El gobierno procedio a intituir un impuesto especial para esos 21 millonario e invento el Minimum Tax de 1969, llamado mas adelante el Alternative Minimum Tax. Actualmente ese impuesto es pagado por 4 millones de americanos, y el 27% de ellos son familias que ganan menos de $200,000. (esas son las burradas que hace el gobierno)

Lo que dice Buffett es mentira, de acuerdo a los datos del mismo IRS, en el 2008, todos los que ganaron mas de $1 millon pagaron impuestos del 23.3% (federales, aparte de los demas impuestos)

Y cual es el efecto de todo esto en la economia? $1.5 trillones de impuestos en 10 anios es mas o menos el 1$ del GDP o PBI.


The Buffett Alternative Tax
The rich don't pay lower average tax rates.

Washington has repeated nearly every economic policy mistake of the 1930s in recent years, so why not repeat one of the bigger blunders of the 1960s too? We refer to President Obama's proposal yesterday for a new "Buffett Rule" to raise taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million a year. This may sound familiar to readers of a certain age, because it is how the current, and much-hated, Alternative Minimum Tax was born.

Mr. Obama, meet Joe Barr. As LBJ's last Treasury Secretary—he served only 30 days—Barr became famous for his January 1969 testimony before Congress that 21 millionaires had paid no income tax in 1967. No fewer than 115 tax returns reporting income above $200,000 had also paid no income tax, and Barr predicted a "taxpayer revolt" unless something was done about it.

Washington proceeded to bend tax policy to chase those 21 millionaires, and so we got the Minimum Tax of 1969 that later became the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT now hits some four million taxpayers, and 27% of households that paid it in 2008 had adjusted gross income of $200,000 or less.

Because it hits taxpayers with heavy deductions, the AMT wallops in particular the upper-middle-class suburbs in high-tax states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and California. Congress keeps passing an annual reprieve to prevent the AMT from hitting another 20 million or so taxpayers, most of whom are far from millionaires.

So here we are back at the same old political stand, though even Mr. Obama concedes that today those he routinely calls "millionaires and billionaires" pay at least some tax. The President's complaint, echoing billionaire Warren Buffett, is that too many billionaires pay a lower rate than regular salary earners. So even as he endorsed tax reform in general yesterday, Mr. Obama insisted that one of his reform "principles" is that people who make more than $1 million must pay a higher tax rate than middle-class earners.

There's one small problem: The entire Buffett Rule premise is false, as the nearby table shows. In 2008, the last year for which such data are available, the IRS reports that those who made more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid an average income tax rate of 23.3%.

That's slightly lower than the 24.1% rate paid by those making between $500,000 and $1 million, probably because the richest are like Mr. Buffett and earn more from capital gains and dividends. The rate for a relative handful of the rich—400 people—fell to 18%, the modern equivalent of Barr's Gang of 21. But nearly all millionaires still paid a rate that is more than twice the 8.9% average rate paid by those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, and more than three times the 7.2% average rate paid by those earning less than $50,000. The larger point is that the claim that CEOs are routinely paying lower tax rates than their secretaries is Omaha hokum.

If Mr. Obama really wants all of these people to pay even more in taxes, there are only two ways to do so. One is to raise tax rates on capital gains, dividends and other investment income that is taxed at 15% and represents a great deal of income for the wealthy. This is probably Mr. Buffett's tax secret, though to our knowledge he hasn't released his returns to the public.

Enlarge Image

Close..The problem is that this is a tax increase on capital investment, which the U.S. already taxes at prohibitive rates thanks to our high corporate tax rate of 35%. Capital gains and dividends are taxed twice, first as corporate profits and then as payouts to individuals. Their real capital gains tax rate is closer to 45% than 15%, which is why politicians of both parties have long supported a capital-gains rate differential.

The other way to raise taxes on the rare Buffett is with a new Minimum Tax, a la Joe Barr. But as we've seen with the AMT, while the politicians may start by chasing "millionaires and billionaires," over time they always end up taxing the middle class because that's where the real money is. Mr. Obama could tax every billionaire in America at a 100% rate and still wouldn't make a dent in the federal deficit. He would, however, succeed in making those taxpayers invest less and search for tax shelters, assuming they didn't move offshore.

We rehearse all of this because it shows that the real point of Mr. Obama's Buffett Rule and his latest deficit proposal isn't tax justice or good tax policy. It is all about re-election politics. Down in the polls and facing a sullen liberal base, Mr. Obama wants to rally the left behind him, and nothing fires them up like the pretense that government is sticking it to the rich. Mr. Obama is picking a tax fight that he apparently believes will carry him to re-election next year.

And what about the economy? Well, the plan Mr. Obama unveiled yesterday along with his Buffett Rule would sock the economy with $1.5 trillion in new taxes over 10 years, or about 1% of GDP. This includes the tax increases built into the 2013 expiration of the Bush-era tax rates but not those of ObamaCare. Anyone who believes this will help an economy that is creating few new jobs and growing by only 1% probably also believes that only the rich would pay the Buffett Alternative Tax.

[admin]

La historia es realmente fascinante!!

Excelente artitulo, por favor leanlo.

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Que pasara despues de Europa?

Las protestas en las calles de Atenas, se convertiran en las protestas de Milan, Madrid y Marseilles. Volveran los chequeos en las fronteras. Las monedas de cada pais resucitaranr y luego seran devaluadas.

Cuando la historia de la caida y la post guerra de Europa del Occidente alguna dia sera escrita, tendra tres volumenes: Titulados "Solo los hechos", "Ficcion conveniente" y el ultimo volumen no aun terminado: "Fraude"

"Solo los hechos" se referira a la Europa despues de la guerra que fue fundada por la necesidad militar, resumida por Lord Ismays cuando dijo que la mision de NATO era mantener a los Rusos fuera, a los Americanos adentro y a los Alemanes abajo". El otro hecho fue el regalo de Ludwig Erhard, autor de las reformas economicas que crearon el marco, abolio los controles de precios, y puso la inflacion bajo control por generaciones. El tercer hecho fue la creacion de el mercado comun de Jean Monnet que le dio a Europa la misma identidad economica pero no politica.

El resultado fue la Wirschaftswunder en Alemania, Les Trente Glorieuses en Francia y el milagro economico de Italia. Podria haber durado hasta nuestros dias, no fue asi.

En 1965, el gasto del gobierno con respecto al GDP (PBI) en promedio era el 28% en Europa del Occidente. Hoy dia es algo menos del 50%. En 1965, la feritilidad en Alemania era de 2.5 por mujer. Hoy dia es un catastrofico 1.35. Durante los anios despues de la guerra, el PBI anual de Europa era de 5.5%. Despues de 1973, raramente excedio el 2.3%. Los Europes trabajaban 102 horas por cada 100 horas trabajadas por los Americanos. En el 2004 ellos solo trabajaban 82 horas por cada 100 que los Americanos trabajaban.

Fue durante este periodo de desaceleracion que Europa entro en el periodo de Ficcion Conveniente.

Habia, para empezar la ficcion de que si se aumentaba la lista de los miembros de la Union Europea, tendrian una economia del tamanio de la de US. Esto no hizo a Europa un super poder? habia la ficcion conveniente de pensar que Europa no necesita una fuerza militar robusta porque podian usar la diplomacia en su lugar. Hubo la ficcion conveniente de que los Europeos compartian los mismos valores y podian ser sujetos a la misma regulacion que gobernaban el crimen y el castigo. Existio la ficcion de que ellos no eran menos productivos si no que tomaban la decision iluminada de la diversion sobre el trabajo.

Y finalmente, la ficcion incrfeible de que Europa tenia su propio "modelo" distinto y superior a los Americanos, que los inmunizaba contra las corrientes internacionales como globalizacion, Islamismo, demografia. Los Europeos adoran sus feriados y pensaron que se merecian un feriado de la historia tambien.

Todo esto funciono de maravilla por un tiempo, para enmascarar las fallas Europeas y mostrar solamente su orgullo. Pero siempre estuvo el peligro de sustituir la grandiosisdad por los resultados, equivocadamente creyendo sus propias fantasias, faltas de sentido.

Aqui es donde Europa paso de la Ficcion Conveniente al Fraude.

Estuvo el fraude de Frecia para poder entrar a la zona euro, un doble affair por que Atenas mintio acerca de su presupuesto y Burselas eligio creer la mentira. Y hubo el fraude llamado Maastricht-las reglas fiscales que se suponia gobernaban al euro para ser ignorados por Francia y Alemania y la crisis actual. Hubo el fraude de la Constitucion Europea.

Lo que esta ocurriendo en Europa no es realmente acerca de su crisis si no de que esta siendo expuesta al mundo: un fraude como el de Madoff mas que como el Lehman. El shock es que es un shock. Grecia nunca iba a ser rescatada y caera en default tarde o temprano. Los bancos que tienen la deuda de Grecia, tendran tarde o temprano que ser capitalizados. La recapitalizacion sera pagada por los Alemanes y eso los llevara tarde o temprano fuera de su limite de deuda. Los Chinos no rescataran nadie, ellos saben muy bien que no se tira dinero bueno encima de dinero malo.

Y vendra Italia despues de Grecia. La crisis de Europa caera sobre US y el efecto en US caera sobre Europa como un Tsunami de doble direccion.

America sobrevivira porque es un estado. Pero como Busmarck una vez remarco: "cualquiera que habla de Europa esta equivocado. Europa es una expresion geografica" La union fiscal que ha sido insinuada, jamas sera aprobada: los electores Alemanes jamas votaran en su favor, y ningun otro pais lo hara tampoco porque todos quieren su independencia fiscal - lo que es decir que es un atributo de la democracia soberana.

Lo que viene despues sera la explosion del proyecto Europe. El proyecto que los lideres Europes han venido trabajando durante los ultimos 30 anios, no es algo malo del todo. Pero vendra con costo masivo. Las protestas de Atenas se convertiran en las de Milan, Madrid y Marseilles. Volveran los chequeos en las fronteras, sus monedas seran resucitadas y despues devaluadas. Los paises preferiran el decadencia sobre la reforma. Es un largo desfile de horribles.

Donde esta la Europa de Ismay, Erhard y Monnet? esta en los recuerdos, si alguien quiere recobrarlos. Denle otros 50 anios, y talvez alguien lo hara.


What Comes After 'Europe'?

The riots of Athens will become those of Milan, Madrid and Marseilles. Border checkpoints will return. Currencies will be resurrected, then devalued.

By BRET STEPHENS

When the history of the rise and fall of postwar Western Europe is someday written, it will come in three volumes. Title them "Hard Facts," "Convenient Fictions" and—the volume still being written—"Fraud."

The hardest fact on which postwar Europe was founded was military necessity, crisply summed up by Lord Ismay's famous line that NATO's mission was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." The next hard fact was hard money, the gift of Ludwig Erhard, author of the economic reforms that created the Deutsche mark, abolished price controls, and put inflation in check for generations. The third hard fact was the creation of Jean Monnet's common market that gave Europe a shared economic—not political—identity.

The result was the Wirtschaftswunder in Germany, Les Trente Glorieuses in France and il miracolo economico in Italy. It could have lasted into the present day. It didn't.

In 1965, government spending as a percentage of GDP averaged 28% in Western Europe. Today it hovers just under 50%. In 1965, the fertility rate in Germany was a healthy 2.5 children per mother. Today it is a catastrophic 1.35. During the postwar years, annual GDP growth in Europe averaged 5.5%. After 1973, it rarely exceeded 2.3%. In 1973, Europeans worked 102 hours for every 100 worked by an American. By 2004 they worked just 82 hours for every 100 American ones.

It was during this general slowdown that Europe entered the convenient fiction phase.

There was, for starters, the convenient fiction that if you just added up the GDP of the European Union's expanding list of member states, you had an economy whose size exceeded that of the United States. Didn't this make "Europe" an economic superpower? There was the convenient fiction that Europe didn't need robust military capabilities when it could exert global influence through diplomacy and soft power. There was the convenient fiction that Europeans shared identical values and could thus be subject to uniform regulations governing crime and punishment. There was the convenient fiction that Continentals weren't lagging in productivity but were simply making an enlightened choice of leisure over labor.

And there was, finally, the whopping fiction that Europe had its own "model," distinct and superior to the American one, that immunized it from broader international currents: globalization, Islamism, demography. Europeans love their holidays and thought they were entitled to a long holiday from history as well.

All this did wonders, for a while, to mask European failures and puff up European pride. But there is always a danger in substituting grandiosity for achievement, mistaking pronouncements for facts, or, more generally, believing in your own nonsense.

Here is where Europe slipped from convenient fiction to outright fraud.

There was the fraud of Greece's entry into the euro, a double-edged affair since Athens lied about its budgetary figures and Brussels chose to accept the lie. There was the fraud of the so-called Maastricht criteria—the fiscal rules that were supposed to govern the euro only to be quickly flouted by France and Germany and then junked altogether in the current crisis. There was the fraud of the European Constitution, overwhelmingly rejected wherever a vote on it was permitted, only to be revised and imposed by parliamentary fiat.

Enlarge Image

CloseAFP/Getty Images

A demonstrator in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, on Sept. 10.
.What is now happening in Europe isn't so much a crisis as it is an exposure: a Madoff-type event rather than a Lehman one. The shock is that it's a shock. Greece was never going to be bailed out and will, sooner or later, default. The banks holding Greek debt will, sooner or later, be recapitalized. The recapitalization will be borne by German taxpayers, and it will bring them—sooner rather than later—to the outer limit of their forbearance. The Chinese will not ride to the rescue: They know not to throw good money after bad.

And then Italy will go Greek. Europe's crisis will lap on U.S. shores, and America's economic woes will lap on Europe's—a two-way tsunami.

America will survive this because America is a state. But as Bismarck once remarked, "Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong. Europe is a geographical expression." The "fiscal union" that's being mooted will never come to pass: German voters won't stand for it, and neither will any other country that wants to retain fiscal independence—which is to say, the core attribute of democratic sovereignty.

What comes next is the explosion of the European project. Given what European leaders have made of that project over the past 30-odd years, it's not an altogether bad thing. But it will come at a massive cost. The riots of Athens will become those of Milan, Madrid and Marseilles. Parties of the fringe will gain greater sway. Border checkpoints will return. Currencies will be resurrected, then devalued. Countries will choose decay over reform. It's a long, likely parade of horribles.

Where is the Europe of Ismay, Erhard and Monnet? It's there in memory, if anyone cares to recover it. Give it another 50 years, and maybe someone will.

[admin]

En el ultimo anio el gobierno no ha despedido a un solo empleado publico mientras en el mes de Agosto el sector privado ha perdido 1,000 empleados al dia. En el ultimo anio, el gobierno no ha hecho nada para apresurar las privatizaciones.

Por que Grecia no llevara a cabo las reformas

Why Greece Won't Reform
Over the past year the government hasn't laid off a single civil servant.

By TAKIS MICHAS

Sometimes it is self-evident truths that cause the strongest reactions.

That was exactly what happened recently with statements attributed to Philipp Rösler, Germany's vice chancellor and economy minister. "To stabilize the euro in the short term, there can't be any taboos," Mr. Rösler said. "That ultimately includes Greece's orderly insolvency, if the necessary instruments are available."

For the Greek political class, the statement was a stab in the back. A statement by a leading German politician that a Greek default was unavoidable appeared to undermine the self-styled "Herculean" efforts of the Greek government to implement the measures envisaged in the bailout plan.

But others entertain strong doubts about the willingness and ability of the Greek political class to implement the structural measures that will improve the performance of the Greek economy. "The present government has done absolutely nothing during the last 12 months to speed up privatizations, reduce the public sector or open up closed professions," Athanasios Papandropoulos, a leading economic analyst, told me recently in an interview. "In these 12 months it has not fired even one civil servant. The only thing it is doing is trying to tax the private sector out of existence. Why should we believe that they will do something different now?"

One commentator writing in the newspaper Kathimerini this week made the point even more forcefully: "Whereas more than 1,000 Greeks were losing their jobs in the private sector every day in August, the government was assuring civil servants with lifetime tenure that their job privileges were not in danger."

Structural reforms have been repeatedly announced by Greek officials during the past. Yet nothing has happened. Greece's plans tend to resemble Soviet Five Year Plans: They look good on paper but have absolutely no bearing on reality. Anyone in the government who tries to point this out is forced to resign. Economist Stella Balfousia, the head of the Greek Parliament budget office, had to tender her resignation after her office published a report contradicting the government's official forecasts on debt and deficit.

Privatization is a case in point. Greece will have to raise some €1.7 billion by the end of September from the privatization program and €5 billion by the end of the year from the medium-term fiscal strategy program. Yet in the past year and a half not a single privatization has taken place. The explanation given for this is the low share prices of the listed companies. The real reason is probably that Greek politicians are loath to give up the system of spoils that they have long run through these enterprises, which are staffed by the party faithful in exchange for votes.

"It is time that Greece's creditors start demanding from Greece concrete and immediate reforms. Not words, not plans—but facts," says Andreas Andrianopoulos, a former minister who now heads the Forum for Greece, a liberal think tank.

Today most Greeks think that it is Greece's foreign lenders—especially Germany—that are imposing on the country the harsh new taxes that, absent structural reforms, will simply make the recession deeper. Mr. Andrianopoulos says that the lenders know better. "Our international creditors should make it very clear that it is not they that are forcing Greeks to pay higher taxes, but rather the unwillingness of the Greek government to fire civil servants, to stop subsidizing the unions and to close defunct state bodies."

But the Greek government will continue to prevaricate as long as Greece's European partners are unwilling to state that Greece's exit from the euro zone is a real possibility. Mr. Rösler may have been stating the obvious, but it was the first time that a leading German politician indicated that a Greek default may not be the end of the world after all. Such a view is of course anathema to the Greek politicians who have understandably been using the threat of bankruptcy as a bargaining chip to get better terms from their creditors.

Mr. Michas is a columnist for protagon.gr. His study "Putting Politics above Markets: Historical Background to the Greek Debt Crisis" was recently published by the CATO Institute.

[admin]

Treasurys Price Chg Yield %
2-Year Note* 1/32 0.162
10-Year Note* 30/32 1.949
* at close

10:50 p.m. EDT 09/19/11Futures Last Change Settle
Crude Oil 85.49 -0.21 85.70
Gold 1783.6 4.7 1778.9
E-mini Dow 11233 -90 11323
E-mini S&P 500 1187.25 -10.50 1197.75

11:00 p.m. EDT 09/19/11Currencies Last (bid) Prior Day †
Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) 76.47 76.59
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.3613 1.3686
† Late Monday in New York.

[admin]

Hay que clarificar las mentiras de Obama, el dice que Buffett paga menos impuestos que su secretaria. En primer lugar los impuestos que paga Buffett son a las ganancias de capital a largo plazo que son 15%, no son impuestos al ingreso.

En segundo lugar los impuestos del 15% a las ganancias de capital provienen de un capital que ya ha sido gravado (despues de impuestos) es decir es un impuesto doble, igualmente los ingresos de Buffett provienen de las ganancias corporativas, las corporaciones tambien pagan impuestos (es decir es un doble impuesto).

Esto no es mas que politica sucia, populismo de campania de reeleccion y nada mas.

Por supuesto, la mayoria de americanos no se va a dar el trabajo de chequear estos detalles, las masas no estan bien informadas. Seguiran creyendo las mentiras de Obama.

[admin]

Ademas es dificil defender a un millonario, no es popular hacerlo, Obama lo sabe y por eso abusa.