Powerball and other lotteries don’t replace taxes — they add to them

Guest Post by Norm Champ

Powerball mania is upon us once again. The lucky winners of Wednesday night’s drawing will receive, at a minimum, a $375 million jackpot.

While the lure of winning such a large sum of money for a seemingly small investment ($2 for one ticket) can be irresistible, those who gamble on the lottery would be wise to save their money, instead of paying what is essentially a voluntary tax to state-sponsored gambling. And some of the biggest contributors to this voluntary tax are the country’s poorest citizens.

In 2014, Americans spent $70.1 billion on the lottery. Yet, the average savings rates of Americans are among the lowest of all modern democracies, generally somewhere around 5% or less. Consumer credit-card debt, meanwhile, is disturbingly high, around $16,000 on average. Average car loan debt is $27,000 per household. Average student loans, $48,000. Mortgage debt, $169,000.

Continue reading “Powerball and other lotteries don’t replace taxes — they add to them”

STATE OF THE ECONOMY

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

This visualization today compares state economies by contribution to America’s GDP of $17.3 trillion (2014), while also grouping the states by geographical regions such as New England, Mideast, Great Lakes, Plains, Rocky Mountains, Far West, Southwest, and Southeast.

Most economic activity is concentrated in three regions: Far West (18.6%), Southeast (21.3%), and Mideast (18.2%). The states in these regions, which cover the majority of the coastline where most big cities are located, comprise nearly 60% of the U.S. total economic output. Compare this with sparsely populated regions such the Rocky Mountains, which contributes only 3.6% of economic output between five large states.

The largest individual state economies include California (13.3%), Texas (9.5%), and New York (8.1%). The smallest economy is held by Vermont (0.2%) with seven others contributing 0.3% of economic output: Maine, Rhode Island, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska.


STATES THAT WILL TAKE A BIG HIT FROM CHINA’S DEVALUATION

In case you missed it, China has devalued their currency for two consecutive days. The devaluation has been just over 2% and it has caused markets around the world to implode. This is just the beginning. They plan on devaluing their currency by 10% in a desperate attempt to revive their floundering economy. What they are really doing is crushing the economies of the US, Europe and Japan as their companies have a harder time competing in world markets.

Those who don’t think the US is heavily dependent on China as a market are delusional. Check out this chart.

Continue reading “STATES THAT WILL TAKE A BIG HIT FROM CHINA’S DEVALUATION”

The Relative Value of $100 in Every American State and County

Via Visual Capitalist

Money at Face Value

Not all money is equal. Even though the face value of money stays relatively constant, the purchasing power that is behind it can differ wildly.

We know this intuitively with our personal experiences with things like inflation, but it is also true depending on where you are spending it. In an expensive metropolitan area it may cost more for ordinary goods, while in a rural place it may buy more than you may expect. Today’s charts use information from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to look at data at the state and county level to see where money can get the most “bang for the buck” in purchasing most goods and services.

Hawaii and D.C. are Money Pits

Looking at the cost of living by state level (and including the District of Columbia), the most expensive places to live are: Hawaii, Washington D.C., New York, and New Jersey. California and Maryland are close behind.

In all of these places, on average, spending $100 will only get you about $85 of goods and services relative to the rest of the country.

Here it is mapped:

The Value of $100 by State
The best places to get bang for your buck? Each dollar goes further in the Midwest and the South. Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, and South Dakota are among the cheapest states to live.

Continue reading “The Relative Value of $100 in Every American State and County”

TIED FOR THIRD WORST

Damn. My beloved Pennsylvania is only projected to run a $2 billion deficit in the upcoming year. Only Alaska and Virginia politicians are doing a worse job than PA. politicians. And these are just projections. More than half the states in the country will run budget deficits in 2016. The new Democrat governor of PA. thought he was going to tax the living shit out of the fracking industry to balance his budget. Too late Tommy Boy. The frackers will be lucky to survive the next two years. There will be nothing left to tax. Of course plan B will be to tell the citizens of PA to bend over and take it up the ass again. He wants to increase our income tax rate by 21% and our sales tax rate by 10%. This is how politicians think. They never think to cut any spending. They never think to cut the gold plated pensions of government drones. Just increase taxes, fees and regulations on the little people.

This country is delusional, dysfunctional, dystopian, and in debt up to its eyeballs. We have supposedly had a growing economy for 6 years, the lowest unemployment rate in 8 years, 0% interest rates, and non-existent inflation (according to the BLS). If these states can’t balance their budgets under these “GREAT” economic conditions, just wait until the stock market implosion, soaring unemployment, and debt payments come due. You don’t have to be a doomer to understand the situation. You just need to understand math. Oh yeah. I forgot. I should have known better than to expect the iGadget addicted, math deficient, Kardashian watching, Twitter crowd to care, understand, or even pay attention.


UNTIL DEBT DO US PART

At least I don’t live in Illinois. My household share of the gold plated pensions owed to PA government workers and teachers is $6,200. But it is only rising by $900 per year, or 16% annually. Think about that for a second. The economy has been barely growing by 2% over the last six years. Wage increases for taxpayers have been 2% annually. But, our obligation to pay government drone pensions is going up by 16% per year. None of these costs show up in the “balanced” budgets passed every year. The feckless spine deficient corrupt politicians in these states don’t have the balls to tell the truth. There is absolutely no mathematical possibility that these pension obligations are honored. It’s just a matter of when all these states pull a Detroit and declare bankruptcy.

The fine people of Illinois each have a $19,000 obligation per household to pay the gold plated pensions of teachers and municipal workers. Message to America – don’t move to Illinois.

 

Chart of the Day

Just the Facts, Ma’am

October 10, 2014:  In 2013, pension debt for Illinois, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York increased by at least four billion dollars per state. From 2012 to 2013, these states had the largest pension debt increase across the 50 states.

State government officials are required to balance their budgets. Instead, they accumulate debt by hiding retirement costs  on their ‘credit cards,’ accumulating debt for future taxpayers to cover.

 

 State  2012 Pension Debt   2013 Pension Debt  Increase
 Illinois

$94.58B

$100.5B

$5.92B

 California

$53.44B

$59.43B

$5.99B

 Texas

$31.64B

$35.86B

$4.22B

 Pennsylvania

$29.26B

$34.02B

$4.76B

 Massachusetts

$23.95B

$30.26B

$6.31B

 New York

$8.75B

$16.99B

$8.24B

Clearly, the requirements for a balanced budget are not working.  All 50 states hide retirement debt from their citizens and legislators, in footnotes and external reports, making it difficult for

 

  • Legislators to work on sustainable options to reduce conflicts between current spending and pension funding
  • Citizens to participate knowledgeably in their government and hold their elected officials accountable

To prevent governments from accumulating “credit card” debt for today’s services that taxpayers will have to pay for in the future, Truth in Accounting believes states should adopt ‘FACT – Based Budgeting’  (Full Accrual and Calculation Techniques).

 

  • FACT – based budgeting requires each year’s budget to include estimates of year-end debt, as well as current year spending
  • Both legislators and citizens would have timely, transparent, truthful information to evaluate spending proposals
  • See page 12 and Appendix IX of Truth in Accounting’s 2013 Financial State of the States for more information

See CA, IL, MA, NY, PA and TX Pension Debt 2009-2013  – check your state by selecting ‘Edit Chart Criteria’ at the bottom of this chart. Then, select your state on the next page and scroll down to ‘Generate Chart.’

UNITED CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA

If you want to know whose vote really counts in your state, examine this data. Do you think your Congress critters care what you think? Guess who fills their campaign coffers with millions? The game is rigged. It’s a club and you’re not in it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2014/06/20140627_state.jpg

State City Top company by revenue Revenue (billions)
Alabama Birmingham Regions Bank $5.89
Alaska* Juneau First National Bank Alaska $2.4
Arizona Phoenix Avnet, Inc. $25.45
Arkansas Bentonville Wal-Mart Stores $476.29
California San Ramon Chevron Corporation $228.84
Colorado Englewood Arrow Electronics, Inc. $21.35
Connecticut Fairfield General Electric $146.04
Delaware Wilmington E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company $36.14
Florida Doral World Fuel Services Corporation $41.56
Georgia Atlanta Home Depot International, Inc. $85.53
Hawaii Honolulu Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. $3.23
Idaho Boise Micron Technology, Inc. $9.07
Illinois Decatur Archer Daniels Midland $89.80
Indiana Indianapolis WellPoint $71.02
Iowa Cedar Rapids Transamerica Life Insurance Company $19.64
Kansas Wichita Koch Industries, Inc. $115
Kentucky Louisville Humana, Inc. $41.31
Louisiana Monroe CenturyLink, Inc. $18.09
Maine Scarborough Hannaford Bros. Co. $3.98
Maryland Bethesda Lockheed Martin Corporation $45.35
Massachusetts Boston Liberty Mutual Holding Company, Inc. $38.50
Michigan Detroit General Motors $155.42
Minnesota Wayzata Cargill, Inc. $136.65
Mississippi Laurel Sanderson Farms, Inc. $2.68
Missouri St. Louis Express Scripts Holding $104.09
Montana Billings Stillwater Mining Company $1.03
Nebraska Omaha Berkshire Hathaway $182.15
Nevada Las Vegas Las Vegas Sands Corp. $13.76
New Hampshire Portsmouth Sprague Resources LP $4.60
New Jersey New Brunswick Johnson & Johnson $71.31
New Mexico Albuquerque Presbyterian Healthcare Services $2.05
New York New York Verizon Communications $120.55
North Carolina Charlotte Bank of America $101.69
North Dakota Bismarck MDU Resources Group, Inc. $4.46
Ohio Dublin Cardinal Health $101.09
Oklahoma Oklahoma City Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc. $26.09
Oregon Beaverton Nike, Inc. $25.31
Pennsylvania Chesterbrook AmeriSourceBergen $87.95
Rhode Island Woonsocket CVS Caremark $126.76
South Carolina Hartsville Sonoco Products Company $4.48
South Dakota Sioux Falls Sanford Health $3.10
Tennessee Memphis FedEx Corporation $44.28
Texas Irving Exxon Mobil $438.25
Utah Salt Lake City Huntsman Corporation $11.07
Vermont Waterbury Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. $4.35
Virginia McLean Freddie Mac $81.22
Washington Issaquah CostCo Wholesale $105.15
West Virginia Morgantown West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc. $42.73
Wisconsin Milwaukee Johnson Controls, Inc. $42.73
Wyoming Gillette Cloud Peak Energy, Inc. $1.39

(Source: Hoover’s, via Broadview Networks)