Via AntoniusAquinas.com,
The Oppressed U.S. Taxpayer
This year, Americans’ day of tribute to their federal overlords falls on April 18. As calculated by the Tax Foundation, the average American will work from January 1 to April 24 (Tax Freedom Day) to pay his share of taxes to all levels of government with some $3.3 trillion to be forked over to the federal government and $1.6 trillion to state and local jurisdictions.
This weekend's biggest, and most shocking story, was the report that in response to a proposed Congressional Bill that would allow a probe into the Saudi role behind the Sept 11 terrorist attack, Saudi Arabia had threatened the US with dumping its roughly $750 billion in Treasury holdings.
Via MauldinEconomics.com,
You often hear me harping on the dangers of too much debt, and I keep my eyes peeled for significant work that backs up my concerns.
In my recent Outside the Box, good friend Dr. Lacy Hunt of Hoisington Investment Management gave us more ammunition to take on those who just don’t seem to get that the endless piling up of debt is not a sustainable way to run an economy.
Headlines that have recently hit the media say that the Saudis are threatening to sell off assets worth hundreds of billions of US dollars if the congress passes the 9/11 report. But according to a report by Moon of Alabama, it is not the Saudis who are making threats, it’s actually congress who are threatening to seize Saudi U.S. assets: It is the U.S. Congress that is threatening to lift the immunity of nation states in front of U.S.
Richard Gamble reviews John Wilsey’s American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion, and finds Wilsey’s version of exceptionalism to be dangerous in its own way: