The economy is not on track and the leaders are desperate for something to work. President Barack Obama’s $3.8 trillion proposed budget for fiscal 2013 emphasizes creating jobs while backing away from further spending cuts. He called for increased spending for job training, community colleges, research and development, and infrastructure, saying the nation “can’t cut our way to growth.” Obama abandoned his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. While attempting to do the “conservative” thing by reducing the deficit, he can’t screw his voter base by taking away their government benefits. He is showing himself to be a very faithful leader for a certain portion of the population.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday as he spouted off about the wealthy paying the government what is rightfully not theirs, defended the White House’s election-year call for higher taxes on the “rich.” The plea from the Obama administration is to end taxes on certain companies and give it to others. For instance, Obama wants to end a manufacturing tax break for oil and gas companies, but expand it for high-tech companies. Essentially what this is doing is picking the winners and losers and controlling the market rather than allowing it to be free. Where does this notion come from that leaders in Washington feel it is okay to be fighting and arguing over money that is not rightfully theirs to control?
The cost of Wall Street bailout is more than previously figured. The Obama administration is asking for $61 billion from its proposed bank tax to pay for the rescue of Wall Street, compared with $30 billion last year. Officials previously said the bailout would cost significantly less than estimated. Throwing around billions of dollars now just seems to be such a household amount now-a-days anyway, what’s the big deal?
The National Federation of Independent Business’ monthly small-business optimism index was essentially flat in January at 93.9, up 0.1 point from December. “The most positive statement that can be made about January’s reading is that the Index did not go down; a change of 0.1 points is essentially no change and it is hardly indicative of a surge in economic activity,” said Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist. Like everyone knows, it is the small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy. CrushTheStreet.com feels that the small businesses are one of the best ways to gauge an economy and if they aren’t feeling anymore optimistic on the things to come, then neither are we.
If only things were as peaceful as in that picture above for Greece. A foreshadow of what is coming to the U.S. is being shown in Greece as the Greek Parliament approved austerity measures that were very unpopular with the people. 34 buildings have been set on fire as the masses in Greece rose up against the government. Take these instances in Europe as something that could be happening in the streets of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago in the very near future.
As a result of the European crisis, major U.S. banks are actually receiving a larger share of global trading revenue in the fourth quarter. The trend is expected to continue as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis continues. “There are some trends being seen across a lot of different competitors and across a number of business lines, which if they play out the way it looks so far, could help the U.S. capital-markets banks in terms of market share,” said Guy Moszkowski of Bank of America. As bad as everything is, at this point in history, the world still views the U.S. the best of the worst place to invest their money.
Gold Update
Last week, the FBI was practically calling people who owned gold and were for liberty domestic terrorists. They obviously need to take a history lesson and remember what this country was founded on. Interestingly enough, this country was founded on a revolution and will likely end in one as well.
It is clear that they are scared of the public’s participation in the gold market and that if people resort to gold and other tools that defer people away from the dollar, their artificial control of the world will be severely handicapped. Needless to say, CrushTheStreet.com believes that the U.S. government is fighting a losing battle and will not be able to suppress the price of gold and silver in the markets for much longer.
Video: Update on the Man For Liberty!
Ron Paul has lost every primary, right? Well don’t discount the actual delegates that are actually showing up to place the actual vote for the people. Honestly, the system is becoming so bad and corrupted and one sided toward the establishment Republicans that it gives us very little hope for the future. CrushTheStreet.com has posted a video on our front page that really sheds some light on what is going on behind the scenes and why Ron Paul is better positioned than most people give him credit for.
Visit this link for this featured video.
Visit CrushTheStreet.com for news, featured videos, and live metals pricing!!!
Opt-out of conventional wisdom!!!