Stocks drop big time

dow-plunges-by-nearly-800-points

It's almost like the government is trying to collapse the stock market....

the thinking is that middle America will take some heavy stock losses and blame Trump.

fed-warns-that-particularly-large-plunge-in-asset-prices-is-possible-if-risks-materialize

Unreal Stickup

NY taxpayers to pay $48,000 per Amazon HQ job

UPDATED: NOV 13 2018 12:42PM EST

New York state is kicking in more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives for getting half of Amazon's second headquarters located in a section of Queens.

The Seattle-based company made its long-awaited announcement Tuesday, saying Long Island City and Alexandria, Virginia, will each get 25,000 jobs. The online retailer also said it will open an operations hub in Nashville, creating 5,000 jobs.

Amazon will also receive as-yet unspecified incentives from New York City.

New York state's incentives are nearly triple those of Virginia's, while Tennessee's are $102 million.

According to Amazon, the cost per job for New York taxpayers is $48,000, compared to $22,000 for Virginia and $13,000 for Tennessee.

In a statement released by Amazon, Cuomo called the agreement "one of the largest, most competitive economic development investments in U.S. history."

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson issued a statement saying:  "Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world...I also don’t understand why a company as rich as Amazon would need nearly $2 billion in public money for its expansion plans at a time when New York desperately needs money for affordable housing, transportation, infrastructure and education." 

FROM AP: 

NEW YORK CITY - Long Island City

Incentives offered to Amazon:

— Performance-based direct incentives of $1.525 billion, based on 25,000 full-time, high-paying jobs created. This includes a refundable tax credit of up to $1.2 billion calculated as a percentage of the salaries Amazon expects to pay employees over the next 10 years, which equates to $48,000 per job for 25,000 jobs with an average wage of over $150,000.

— Cash grant of $325 million based on the square footage of buildings occupied in the next 10 years.

— Amazon will also apply for as-of-right incentives including New York City's Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program and New York City's Relocation and Employment Assistance Program. There was no dollar figure immediately attached to this benefit.

City Benefits:

— More than 25,000 full-time jobs.

— $2.5 billion investment from Amazon.

— Facilities totaling 4 million square feet, with the potential to double in size.

— Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years.

THESE TYPES OF DEALS SHOULD BE OUTLAWED. MOST PUBLIC OFFICIALS ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO STAND UP TO A COMPANY LIKE AMAZON.

Dan Hynes

key advisor

19th warders are back in a high clout position with ready access to Governor Pritzker, via the naming of Dan Hynes to the Pritzker transition team. Hynes, the son of legendary 19th ward healer Tom Hynes, leads a brain trust composed of some of the keenest minds to ever advise a governor elect. Things are going to be good. 

The United States Is Going Broke

Those who focus on the U.S. national debt (and I’m one of them) keep wondering how long this debt levitation act can go on.

The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is at the highest level in history (106%), with the exception of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. At least in 1945, the U.S. had won the war and our economy dominated world output and production. Today, we have the debt without the global dominance.

The U.S. has always been willing to increase debt to fight and win a war, but the debt was promptly scaled down and contained once the war was over. Today, there is no war comparable to the great wars of American history, and yet the debt keeps growing.

In a new Weekly Standard article, the celebrated James Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer reviews not only the current debt and deficit situation but provides an overview of the U.S. national debt since George Washington and Alexander

$36,000 per taxpayer!

Chicago’s financial condition over the year saw minimal improvements, but not the kind needed to rescue it from a failing grade issued by a financial watchdog group.

Truth in Accounting handed Chicago an “F” on its fiscal grading scale for the second year in a row. The study pegs the city’s overall debt at $32.5 billion, or $36,000 per taxpayer.

In 2017, Truth in Accounting pegged Chicago’s debt per taxpayer at $45,000. The report attributes the city’s minor improvement to a recent change in state law imposing stricter funding requirements for local pension funds.

Informed Chicagoans won’t be surprised that city finances are overwhelmed by pension debt. Chicago’s unfunded pension liability shrank by $7.8 billion as a result of the new state law, leaving

Memo to Trump, this is not good, not sustainable

Treasury Sees 2018 Borrowing Needs Surging to $1.34 Trillion

• Randall Woods

October 29 2018, 2:00 PMOctober 30 2018, 2:19 AM
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury Department said government borrowing this year will more than double from 2017 to $1.34 trillion as the Trump administration finances a rising budget deficit.

Specifically, the department expects to issue $425 billion in net marketable debt from October through December, lower than the $440 billion estimated in July, according to a statement released Monday in Washington. The Treasury sees an end-of-December cash balance of

Public Employees (especially in Chicago) need to read this. You had a Pension but then you lost it.

In 10 years or so, for most public employees, the concept of a pension will be fleeting. Blame it on gross (very gross mismanagement) and theft. 

The best thing to do is take your lump sum and invest it where it won't get tapped again.  

Pension Tension

This is a very emotional subject, pensions. Politicians and unions promised pensions they had no way to fund for the last 40 years and the bill has come due. It’s not just bad for taxpayers, it’s bad for pensioners. If you think local governments won’t take away the pensions they promised, you clearly aren’t paying attention.

The face of retirement changed when Nixon took the dollar off the gold system. This was the beginning of the end of the economic stability of the American family. Since then, we’ve had three of the worst recessions since the Great

Stock market is in the process of being collapsed

JUST IN TIME FOR THE ELECTION, NEXT UP A COUPLE OF BANKS HERE AND THERE.

No bull: More than two-thirds of the S&P 500's individual stocks are now either in a "correction" or a bear market. 

More than 350 companies out of the 500 tracked by the S&P 500 index have lost more than 10 percent of their value since hitting their 52-week highs, according to a recent analysis from Reuters. Within that group around 180 stocks are now in bear market territory, with their shares having lost more than 20 percent of their value since hitting their 52-week high. 

A bear market is one where stock prices decline at least 20 percent from their recent peak. A correction is when shares drop at least 10 percent from their recent highs. Shares on Thursday opened higher, regaining some of the ground lost earlier this week. 

For some investors, the slump in S&P 500 companies' shares is a bright red flag. Their chief concern is that U.S. and global economic growth has hit its high-water mark for the current business cycle and is already starting to weaken. Most economic forecasters, along with the Federal Reserve, think the hot economy is likely to cool in 2019, which could hurt corporate profits. 

This time it's different

is-the-melt-up-back?

He isn't even elected yet.....mileage tax

IS HE A TAXER?

SPRINGFIELD, Ill, (ILLINOIS NEWS NETWORK) – Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker have different ideas about how to tax motorists and raise money for road improvements around the state.

After his appearance at a forum this week in Normal for the Illinois Farm Bureau, Gov. Bruce Rauner told reporters Pritzker has a plan to tax drivers based on how many miles they drive.

“Pritzker has proposed a mileage tax on cars,” Rauner said. “He has proposed a tax, put a box in your car, measure your miles and pay a tax

Interest Rates !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yikes

/jp-morgans-jamie-dimon-cautions-10-year-treasury-note-rate-to-hit-5-percent

People better hang on to their hats

Irretrievable

these-american-states-are-drowning-in-irretrievable-debt

Illinois reform governor has accomplished nothing.

NAFTA and a few other items

Paul Craig Roberts

For two decades the offshoring of American jobs to Asia and Mexico has destroyed the careers and incomes of tens of millions of US citizens, the pension tax base for state and local governments, the federal tax base for Social Security and Medicare, and the opportunity society that once characterized the United States of America.

The rise in corporate profits that resulted from substituting foreign labor for American labor rewarded corporate executives and boards, hedge funds, large shareholders, and Wall Street with profits at the expense of the American population and the US economy.

The low rates of economic growth claimed since the alleged recovery from the 2008 financial crisis that resulted from financial deregulation, a huge mistake made by politicians in service to capitalist greed, is based entirely on under-measuring inflation. Allegedly, Americans have suffered no inflation for a decade, but anyone who buys anything knows that that is a lie. What jobs offshoring did is to destroy the growth in productivity based US consumer purchasing power that drove the US economy. In short, the short-sighted

Cut the spending

cook-county-faces-177-million-in-deficits-over-next-two-budget-years

Chicago is the leader.....vote democratic

Liberal utopia: Chicago leads US in underwater homes

Posted on June 8, 2018 by DCG 

From MyFoxChicago: The U.S. housing market has been on the rebound in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but one major city has thousands of homes that remain underwater.

A recent report from the real estate website Zillow shows Chicago leading the country with 254,000 homes in negative equity. Twenty percent of the quarter million people with

underwater mortgages owe double the current value of the home.

Los Angeles, the only other U.S. metro area bigger than Chicago, had 74,000 underwater homes, while San Francisco had 20,000.

Cities that were hardest hit by the housing crisis have rebounded. Less than 10% of homes in Las Vegas are underwater, and Miami has an underwater rate of 8.7%.

The appreciation of home values in the Chicago area has decreased over the years in part by crime, unfunded pensions and taxes.

Warning to our politicians: You better do something to restore confidence

illinoisans-fleeing-state-taxes-financial-loss

Recession?

the-bond-market-could-be-signaling-a-recession

Emanuel blames Daley for avalanche of tax increases — without saying his name

Not his fault

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday blamed his predecessor and political mentor for the avalanche of tax increases needed to solve Chicago’s $36 billion pension crisis without uttering the name of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. | Max Herman/For the Sun-Times

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday blamed his predecessor and political mentor for the avalanche of tax increases needed to solve Chicago’s $36 billion pension crisis without uttering the name of former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

“I would love nothing else in my life if somebody else had done it. … The question isn’t what I did. Part of the question has to be what wasn’t done beforehand that required that action” the mayor said during a taping of the WLS-AM (890) Radio program, “Connected to Chicago,” to be broadcast at 7 p.m. Sunday.

“Had this been taken care of before, it would have been taken care of at a much cheaper price. People

Crooked

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