Arkansas Blog

Ouch! I'd thought that an 8,000 Dow would be the bottom but we sank past that yesterday with more bad news on the horizon and recovery projections months away. The worst is yet to come IMHO.

At least Denny's proposed tax cuts have at least a semblance of policy sense -- subsidizing things like renewable energy and historic preservation. And then we have Bobby Glover, who wants to give a sales tax exemption to those blasted mini-storage complexes that are popping up like weeds on every vacant lot between here and LR.

And did I mention Bobby's bill to ban elected county officials from running against him?

Anybody ever try to figure out how much damage Bobby Glover single-handedly does to the ozone layer with the all those CFCs from what seems to be at least one can of hair spray used each day?

ATHD Director Dan Flowers wants the public to buy more gas so the Highway Department can collect more taxes. Whay will they do with this money? Build more highways. You gotta love state government.

They'll then need us to drive even more, that they might be able to pay to maintain the roads. Our driving will produce a call for more roads, which then will require even more money to maintain those roads. They'll then require more money to maintain the roads and, well, you get the point.

All easily sold in the name of economic development. There sure seem to be a lot of nice, medianed, wide-shouldered roads to pretty much nowhere in certain parts of our state. And man does traffic in NWA still suck as does the nonsense of 630's unfortunate western ending. But someday we'll likely have two or three different loops around Pine Bluff. I know they put those roads up in the name of infrastructure to help towns, but to be honest I guess I sorta like the loop around Pine Bluff for a different reason- it keeps me from having to drive around in the shithole.

Anyway, all in the name of economic development. And who really benefits the most in the end? Click my name.

What amazes me is that our elected reps for the most part don't understand that "corporate tax" is a fallacy. The customers pay the tax.

As an example, in the last legistative session Sue Madison wanted to apply the state sales tax to residential rental properties. She thought it was a "corporate income tax" but if it had passed, every tenant would have suddenly been hit with a 7% rent hike. I rent to working-class blue collar families, and some of them couldn't afford a $50 rent hike.

When I buy a rental property, I figure out the numbers I need to make a profit. Then I calculate the taxes, expected repairs, vacancies, etc. Every business is the same... we're in it to make a profit, not provide charity. If you increase "corporate tax" the expense gets passed on to the consumer.

Hopefully that stupid ineffective Republican theory called 'trickle down' will fall along with the economic mess it helped create. (I'm looking for some silver linings in all this economic mess.)

Once upon a time pension funds were 'vested' because they were considered more like employee savings accounts than company assets. But the greedy bastards, public and private, couldn't stand all that money just sitting there so they had the laws changed so they could AT LEAST use them as collateral. It's been straight downhill since the laws governing pensions changed.

Monkeyboy's supporters have been arguing for some time that history is going to erase his current 'worst president ever' title...that a backwards view will reveal 'things' we failed to recognize. Perhaps they're partly right...instead of being just the worst president ever he may enter world history as one of its worst.

zelda, that "just you wait" bullshit was used by the MonkeyBoy administration in Iraq too.
6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months at the most. Then it kept morphing.

His place in history is well-deserved. Now all that's left is sending Karl Rove to prison.

One question Max: Where will school districts get the extra monies to prop up bad pension
fund decisions?

I noted in an article on the fund yesterday that not all asset groups in the teachers retirement fund under performed. Most of losses were from foreign equity investments.
.

Let's hear a cheer for the benefits of deregulation! Wasn't that Gramm assist of Greenspan's deregulation stance with the repeal of the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act a tremendous boost?

Look at what resulted . . . all because of the those darn lower class people forced all those lenders to make subprime mortgages.

A die-hard Bush apologist where I work said, when told that the Dow dropped below 7500 and the S&P hit eleven year lows, "That's just what happens when ACORN makes all those bad subprime loans!"