Last year, the government extracted $1.1 trillion in taxes from us individual taxpayers. But now it will pay, along with the states, $429 million of our taxes to the coolest Silicon-Valley beauty queen: Facebook. In net tax refunds! Part of a vast package of juicy corporate welfare programs. Facebook isn’t just hogging our data; it’s gobbling up our money.
Debtor Nation
The New Reality Of ‘Economic Recovery’ For American Workers
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The New Reality Of ‘Economic Recovery’ For American Workers
Despite optimism-mongering in the media, in certain quarters of Washington, and elsewhere, we’ve had indication after indication in the economic data that American workers have not benefited from whatever lousy progress has been made in nudging up GDP. But now we know from the horse’s mouth: they’re mired in a tough new reality that is getting worse.
College Graduates Are The New Debt Slaves
by Contributor • • Comments Off on College Graduates Are The New Debt Slaves
Contributed by Chriss Street. With the average cost of attending college in America at $120,000, a family of four should expect their children’s college to cost more than a home. Yet, optimism about the value of education provided justification for students to borrow $42 billion from the US this year. And many of them will end up as student-loan debt slaves.
The Majestic US Debt, Visualized, Animated, With Rousing Music
by Wolf Richter • • 2 Comments
The staged posturing with its tragic-funny theatrics and lurid special effects in Washington about the Fiscal Cliff—and whether to fall off, jump off, fly off, dive off, climb down, or somehow avoid it altogether—has become an inescapable media reality, much like Y2K once was. I remember well the worldwide letdown on January 1, 2000.
For-Profit Colleges: A “Business Model” That Blew Up
by Wolf Richter • • 9 Comments
Career Education, when it reported its quarterly results, shed light on an industry that had ruthlessly taken advantage of the American way of funding higher education, and that had preyed on gullible prospective students who were trying to better their lives. Then it handed the tab to the taxpayer. A perfect scam. Now the industry is in a vise between government crack-downs and reluctant students.
Fear of Impending Economic Collapse Or Just Manipulation?
by Wolf Richter • • 1 Comment
Two thermometers into the brains of corporate America plunged to depth not seen since the trough of the Great Recession when the US was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. One was based on responses from CEOs of America’s largest corporations; the other was based on responses from analysts who’d listened to their industry contacts. Just before Lehman, these people had exactly zero predictive capabilities. So, could they now have ulterior motives?
Fear Mongering And Hysteria About The Fiscal Cliff
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Fear Mongering And Hysteria About The Fiscal Cliff
It’s been a phenomenal circus, the screaming and hollering on all sides about the “fiscal cliff,” in the media, from lawmakers, from chieftains of our industries, particularly those that feed at the government’s big trough, such as defense contractors, which include some of the largest global corporations. Even NPR this morning postulated that it would cause a million job losses. Hysteria comes to mind.
US National Debt: In A Year, I’ll Add Another Ugly Data Point
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on US National Debt: In A Year, I’ll Add Another Ugly Data Point
The final amount that the US government owes at the end of fiscal 2012 (September 30) is, drumroll, $16,159,487,013,300. It owes it, in no particular order, to the Saudis, US citizens, the Social Security Trust Fund, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians…. It amounts to about 103% of GDP. An earsplitting hangover from a debt binge that robbed the future. But there are winners.
Calamity Economy Strikes Again, But Hope Is Back In Vogue
by Wolf Richter • • 1 Comment
Hope was once again in vogue Thursday night in President Obama’s acceptance speech, after having gone the way of the green shoots. Hope has been swirling around the financial markets as well. The Fed keeps dangling QE3 out in front of them. And ECB President Mario Draghi injected a mega-dose of it with his bond-buying promise. It goosed the markets even more and powered them to multi-year highs. Then came the jobs report.
All Heck Breaks Loose on CNBC, TARP Gets Sanctified, Bank Bailouts Get Whitewashed, And The Fed Escapes Scot-Free
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
It must have been a nightmare for Neil Barofsky, former Inspector General overseeing TARP during the financial crisis. He was on CNBC this morning to hawk his new book, when all heck broke loose. An argument about TARP, the most despised law in the US … how it prevented the collapse of Wall Street or something. But they failed to mention that by the time TARP was handing out money, it had already become irrelevant. A much greater power had taken control.