Arkansas Blog

The stock market also continued to go down for a long time after the 1929 crash. The stock market may not be through falling. People also forget that the depression didn't hit right after the crash. Some seem to think the worse is over, yet the recession/depression is just beginning.

Oh my. This thing has just been going on for a few months. It's in its infancy, the losses haven't begun to mount. More foreclosures last month than any month since Nixon's recession and we're just starting. Recall it took the GD until 1931 to upset America.

What should spook the hell out of you is Paul Volcker standing behind President-elect Obama.
Recall the medicine he dished out in the 70s? Crashed 1000s of farms and more businesses.

Many of the food items we stockpiled back in May have almost doubled in price.

Going to be a long winter.

Bush's bail out is now an obvious failure. No surprise there, except that a bunch of class A
dummies authorized it and only threaten to review or audit Paulson's spending spree.

.

The stock market didn't bottom out till more than 1.5 years after the "1929 crash."

click name for chart

disregard last link...try this one

Faulkner County needs some of that state money for a new jail fence...the one at the NEW jail...'cause evidently its fence wouldn't hold a frisky dog. The story (at link) wasn't that noteworthy until I read that three had escaped in May and that 'they' didn't actually catch this guy. They 'strategically' backed off...ha ha. Isn't someone s'pose to be watching inmates while they're in the 'yard'?

And, way to go Log Cabin...the second/third graphs touting the glorious police work, the glorious cooperation between twiddle dee/twiddle dumb (yes, that's right)...then on to the piddling details. I'd bitch more, but NO ONE here is surprised by ANYTHING the LCD does anymore. It doesn't even pretend there is such a thing as journalism. Way to go cops! Way to go jail planners! Great job! Let's raise some more taxes for some more new jails!

Brummett is missing what is really going on here. For that, click on the name..,,

Whoops, the link did not show, try this name....

". . . all the so-called democracies I've ever seen or heard of were either forced on the majority from above or grew up slowly from the plebs discovering that they could vote themselves bread-and-circuses- for a while, until the system broke down. . . ."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Why would we expect an astute politician in a democracy not to vote a bread-and-circus while she/he can? Remember . . . Reagan's Tax Cuts, Clinton Tax-Cuts, George W. Bush Tax Cuts . . . Even George H.W. Bush would have, if Reagan hadn't made it impossible, remember "Read my lips, no new taxes.", even though he called Reagan's tax cuts theory "voodooo economics."

And now Obama has proposed tax cuts similar to Clinton's . . . I hope they have a similar effect, but with the G.W. Bush's effect raising the U.S. on-going credit card balance to 10+ trillion from 5.7 trillion in only eight years, our economy may have swallowed a poison pill for decades to come.

Max, I doubt removing a one percent sales tax on groceries will amount to any kind of drop in revenue simply because the money will be spent on other items on which the sales tax is collected. There is no loss.

ARK. BLOG: That's silly Cato. The $31 million is lost as a state revenue source. And, when applied to the Medicaid program, that's a $120 million loss.

But Cato, folks will spend as much or more on food, and now those purchases produce state revenue, and with Beebe's plan, they won't. The little bit they now spend for sales tax on food that might be spent elsewhere sure won't make up the difference.

Cato you'd be looking at basically 1 percent of 1 percent. I don't think that could make up for the loss revenue.

The money saved on the reduction in the grocery tax can be spent on lottery tickets, surely the leg wouldn't make lotto tickets exempt from the sales tax.

John (Yawn) Brummett: Too predictable (I know what position he'll take before even he does). A great columnist? Steve Lopez of the LA Times, formerly of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Check him out.

I'm not so sure you guys are correct. Loss of revenue might be tied to present economic factors rather than what is being taxed. Does anyone really think that money saved buying food with the removal of the penny sales tax is tucked away under the mattress and not spent on something that the sales tax applies to? There's hardly anything not taxed - medicine, certain services, advertising- so unless the money is tucked away explain how revenues still won't be generated.....unless economic downturns take place.

Local taxes continue on food, of course. Our local sales taxe(s) revenue has shot up about 30 % since the first of the year. I'm not sure that is because more food has been bought but more that local people are shopping locally since fuel prices have shot up and inflation, of course. Perhaps someone will offer an explanation on that one.

censored again. WTF. had to change my name and lost my post again.
Proof that this blog is a hangout for liberals only. you guys have fun stewing in your own hate.

busted

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Again with the censorship. I'll keep coming back to discredit your flimsy arguments Max.

"Does anyone really think that money saved buying food with the removal of the penny sales tax is tucked away under the mattress and not spent on something that the sales tax applies to?"

Cato.

If you buy $100 worth of groceries, that would be $1.00 you would save. If you took that dollar and spent it on non-food items, you'd pay 6% of it to the state. That would be 6 cents instead of a dollar. So the state just lost 94% of that 1% sales tax on food.

Got it?