Attorney Dean Malone has been a champion for the consumer. He has an interesting career. He goes after abusive debt collectors and typically wins every time. The abuse is rampant. When I get an e-mail from someone describing an abusive debt collector, I send them to Dean.

The Fair Debt Practices Act says exactly what debt collectors can and cannot do. They typically threaten with everything from wage garnishment (which is not allowable in Texas), lawsuits, jail time, telling your boss or co-workers, taking your home away from you, etc.

Well, it appears that Ace Cash Express has taken things a little too far. Dallas Morning News did a story on Dean and one of our listeners. The abuse was awful. She is a teacher and the debt collector called her in her classroom and started the abuse process. She was 30 days late. One of the quotes from the debt collector:

“Let me know when you’re ready for the information, and I still need Principal Neely, and we’re going to speak to the school district also. I mean you’re not going to get away with this…” All of this for a $200 debt.

They were threatening all types of things. The worst was that she was threatening to tell the school district and the principal. That is against the law according to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Can you imagine a teacher in a classroom with her students working on assignments, getting harassed by a debt collector?

The good news is that you don’t have to put up with collection abuse like this. There is a remedy under the law to protect you through the Fair Debt Practices Act. I bring this up because so many people put up with debt collector harassment and you shouldn’t have to do so. The best thing is that under the law, the attorney can force the debt collector to pay the legal bills. So, a consumer can stop the harassment, get legal help, and most often not have to pay for the help.

Dean has now taken legal action against on 20 counts against this company.

For more information about these cases and to listen to some of these recordings you can go to www.deanmalone.com.

Tags: abusive, Ace Cash Express, Bob Brooks, Dean Malone, debt collector harassment, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, legal help

Don’t get me wrong – I like Stephen Baldwin. I like his witness in the dark world of Hollywood. This story that ran in Yahoo this week is simply strange. Apparently Stephen Baldwin has fallen on tough economic times and was forced to file bankruptcy.

This Florida man has set up a web-site and is asking that people donate money to restore Stephen Baldwin back to financial health again. He claims that the actor did not endorse the idea. Of course, he sure isn’t doing anything to prevent this from happening.

This guy in Florida states that because Stephen took a stand, he lost opportunities in Hollywood. That is a little bit of a stretch for me. Like a lot of people who weren’t too good with their money, it probably had more to do with other things. Besides, becoming a Christian and taking that stand saved his life in more ways than one. I have heard his testimony in person. He was definitely going down a road that was taking him surely to financial ruin and destruction.

Hey, how about a request to give money to his ministry so that he can in turn use that to reach people for Christ? This is just a bizarre story to me.

Tags: bankruptcy, Bob Brooks, financial, Hollywood, Stephen Baldwin

“A man-made economic disaster…” This is how one politician described the great recession. Get out the popcorn because we have some great political theatre. The politicians are grilling the Goldman Sachs executives and boy do they have a leg to stand on. Now, don’t get me wrong. We are all kidding ourselves if we don’t give credit to the one group of individuals that created the entire mess. The politician should have opened up with “a politician-made economic disaster.” There should be no question in anyone’s mind that the politicians are responsible for allowing the great recession to happen.

Having said that, you are seeing politics at its finest right now. Let’s back up to what happened a few weeks ago. The SEC filed allegations against Goldman Sachs stating that they violated security laws. Now, this is an SEC case that concerns a violation of securities laws that should be tried in a court of law. That should be the end of the story. No, this is the perfect opportunity to play politics and I have to say that the politicians are going to have their moment in the sun with this one. So, the politicians put the Goldman Sachs execs on the stand and grill them. They accomplish two things. First, they have the opportunity to stick the blame on Goldman Sachs and Wall Street while removing any blame from themselves. Second, they use this as an example as to why they need to pass financial reform. (Side note – the financial reform package that is currently being debated is nothing but legislation that will further empower the government – don’t mistake this for true financial reform.)

Could Goldman look any worse? They created these mortgage backed securities. They sold them to their clients. At the same time, they knew these investments would fail and they bet against them by “shorting” them and making billions of dollars. That is a clear violation of securities laws on the surface and that is all the public will see. However, it is more complicated than the allegations suggest. This case against Goldman illustrates one of the biggest problems in the investment world. Brokers (as in the case of Goldman) are only required to suggest investments that are suitable for their clients. They are not required to recommend investments that are in their clients’ best interest. An argument could be made that the investments were suitable. A mortgage backed security was considered a conservative fixed income investment. However, knowing that Goldman was betting against these securities because they were predicting the housing market was going to fail makes them not suitable for the client.

So, it comes down to a question of ethics versus violation of securities laws. Granted, that is a small part of the whole lawsuit. It just goes to show how investors are not adequately protected by securities laws.

So the politicians have a great opportunity here. There is no question in my mind that the White House was in on the whole lawsuit to begin with. The timing was just too convenient. My favorite part of these “hearings” (public beatings, political grandstanding, etc) is that the politicians had 30 minutes to open up with their statements. When the Goldman execs approached the stand, they were told they had a maximum of 5 minutes to give their statements. You have to love politics. What is even more ironic is that while these hearings are happening Goldman Sachs stock is up 2%.

Tags: Bob Brooks, Goldman Sachs, politicians, securities laws

Bloomberg had an article posted today entitled – Bond Traders Declare Inflation Dead after Yields Fall! The article surmises that interest rates are low and well contained. One trader states that he is not concerned at all about rising interest rates. He doesn’t think that rising interest rates will be a threat.

I believe that interest rates will rise for one simple reason. Let me show you an illustration of something that ran in the Chicago Tribune.

(related image)

Debt will probably be the reason that interest rates go up. If you have been staying up on the news, you know that Greece and many of the other European Union countries are in financial trouble. Greece, in particular, needs to borrow money or are seeking a bail-out just so they can make their debt payments to their creditors. So if you are going to lend money to someone in trouble, shouldn’t you get rewarded with higher interest rates for taking the risk? When Greece issues bonds (read: borrows money), they are forced to pay higher interest rates because they represent a risk. I think that we will start to see the same thing in this country. In fact, I think that we already are seeing this occur. At some point, investors are going to demand much higher interest rates on US government bonds which forces interest rates to rise. One other point to make about the article is that rising interest rates does not automatically equate to inflation. We need prices to go up all across the board for inflation which brings me to the title of this piece.

Inflation would be a welcome sign. The opposite of inflation is deflation. That is what Japan has been mired in for decades and what the US went through in the 30’s. I believe that is what we face today. Unusually high levels of debt create deflation. So, once again, we come full circle to this enormous debt problem in America. Our politicians can pretend it is not there. We can also think of it as our children’s problems. In reality, it is driving force behind all financial problems in this country.

Low Volume

Will Deener wrote an article in the Dallas Morning News this morning debunking the views of those of us who are bearish. He quotes a trader that states the low volume in the stock market is actually a bullish indicator. He says that you want to buy stocks when no one wants them. I don’t think that I would go this far. There is something else that usually occurs when the volume is this low. You typically see low volume when you are getting to the end of a bull market run. Further, investors are unusually spooked right now about the stock market. I don’t think that this kind of fear is a good thing.

Tags: Bloomberg, Bob Brooks, deflation, government bonds, inflation, interest rates, national debt

Do you have to wonder why there is so much investment fraud these days? Do you really have to wonder why Bernie Madoff got away with the biggest ponzi scheme in history while the SEC was receiving evidence that it was occurring?

A report was recently released a report that senior staffers were discovered to be surfing porn sites while they were being paid to police the financial system.

A CNBC report states the following:

A senior attorney at the SEC’s Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.
It is really tough to know what to write about this story. It just illustrates the widespread corruption that exists with this government. It is amazing that a staffer who gets paid that much taxpayer money could just sit at his desk all day long and do nothing but surf porn and no one realizes that nothing is getting done.

Tags: Bob Brooks, corruption, Government

If you have failed to send back your 2010 US Census forms, a census worker will be showing up at your place of business helping you do it in person. April 16th was the target date to get your census into the federal government. This has the potential for a huge identity theft problem. Identity thieves have been known to dress up like all types of official looking people and show up on your doorstep asking for information.

I could easily see someone dressing up like a census worker to get information. It is my understanding that a census worker will only ask for name, date of birth, race, sex, and if the individual lived at the residence on April 1st. Nowhere on the census form does it ask for your social security number. Regardless, I would want to see a great deal of identification before giving anyone information.

Giving information to a census worker violates the one strategy that will help protect you against identity theft. Never give anyone information that approaches you. Only give information to someone that you approach and you know is real.

Tags: 2010 census, Bob Brooks, Identity Theft

I know that this is no newsflash. Pew Research Center reported that nearly 80% of Americans say they can’t trust Washington and have little faith in the Government’s ability to solve the country’s problems. I realize that this is no newsflash. However, there was an element to the story that was somewhat humorous. The first time they took the survey they thought that the results were wrong. After all, could Americans really distrust politicians this much? Fox News reports that they re-ran the survey two more times only to find that yes American’s do distrust politicians this much.

Although politicians include Republicans and Democrats and for the most part, with a few exceptions, politicians are all the same, this statistic needs to translate to the polls in November. We are at critical times right now. They have forced healthcare through the system. Next they immediately jumped on financial reform and regulation. The bill in the present form is nothing more than a political power grab giving politicians the ability to have an enormous amount of power over companies. This bill in the current form would be as bad as the healthcare bill in relation to its socialistic effects on America.

If voters can turn the tide in November and balance out the mix between Democrats and Republicans, at least we could potentially reverse this march towards socialism. Republicans are acting as if they care about capitalism. After all, it is politically beneficial for them to actually not be politicians right now. How about that for irony?

Between now and November, it will be a big push for financial regulation (read:control) and then the infamous Cap and Trade Legislation which has already passed the House. If they get those two things passed before November, it will not matter who gets elected or re-elected.

Tags: Bob Brooks, capitalism, Democrats, healthcare, Republicans, socialism

If you think you might be experiencing heart problems, you would go to the doctor and take a stress test to make sure that your heart is strong enough to weather any stress that might occur. What about your finances? Are your finances strong enough to weather any potential stress that could occur in your life or the life of your family?

The Prudent Money Foundation’s chief objective is to educate and prepare people to deal with all facets of money and finances. All of this is done from a biblical perspective. Through the foundation, we are making it possible for anyone interested to go through a financial stress test. This is an evaluation done through an online survey. Once you have completed your survey, someone will grade it and call you with a brief evaluation. It covers 7 main areas of financial health such as investments, insurance needs, unemployment risk, emergencies, disability, death, and debt.

For more information, send us an e-mail and we will send you a link to the survey.

Tags: Bob Brooks, Debt, emergencies, finances, insurance, Investing, Prudent Money, stress

I liked the good old days. There were the days that politicians played politics behind closed doors. Today, they are so obvious my 8 year old could see it.

The politicians in Washington desperately want you to believe that financial reform at any cost is needed. In a desperate attempt to get public support, they made their largest push to vilify Wall Street Friday by the SEC charges of fraud on Goldman Sachs. Doesn’t it seem a little convenient and obvious?

Like clockwork, President Obama sent out an e-mail to his database (I signed up for it) of supporters on Friday stating the following:

We cannot delay action any longer. It is time to hold the big banks accountable to the people they serve, establish the strongest consumer protections in our nation’s history — and ensure that taxpayers will never again be forced to bail out big banks because they are “too big to fail.”

Mr. President, could I re-word that a bit? It is time to hold the politicians accountable to the people they serve… This is what is so laughable. You can’t reform Wall Street until you reform those who pass the laws intended to reform. There is no question that there is plenty of corruption to go around for Wall Street. I have no doubt that the allegations regarding fraud and Goldman Sachs are probably right on the money. In the past, Goldman was always the government’s golden child. If Washington needed someone to serve on the President’s cabinet, they just hired someone from Goldman. Remember Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who headed up the financial crisis? Yes, former Goldman lead man. I even commented in a presentation that I made at a conference last week that Goldman would probably always be protected. I guess I was wrong about that one.

Make no bones about it – this isn’t about financial reform. It is about bigger government and strengthening the politicians’ ability to control and rule with an iron fist. The politicians are the ones that should be held accountable. It has been proven time and time again that they are the primary reason that we are in this mess. They sat back and allowed this financial crisis to be created on their watch. They changed rules and ignored manipulation all in the name of favors. Now they conveniently vilify the financial institutions for the benefit of politics and assignment of blame.

Investigations into Goldman should have been done a long time ago. Matt Taibbi, writer for the Rolling Stone, had a great expose on Goldman Sachs stating that Goldman Sachs “has engineered every market manipulation since the Great Depression.” Investigation into any allegations of wrong doing by Washington has not been politically convenient up until now.

Tags: Bob Brooks, financial reform, Goldman Sachs, Government, Obama, politicians, Wall Street

One of the more frustrating things with money is determining what to do with cash. You don’t get paid hardly any interest and there is the concern of whether or not the bank is even safe. There is very little difference between burying it in the backyard and keeping it in a bank.

Just 2 to 3 years ago, money market accounts were paying upwards of 5% on these relatively safe places to keep cash. Today, these same safety net accounts are paying barely a tenth of 1%.

So when dealing with the emergency fund, there are some rules of thumb.

(1) First and foremost, put a priority on building an emergency account even over investing into your 401(k) plan.

Now most would disagree with this first rule of thumb. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Investing in your 401(k) plan is building for the long-term. All of the long-term money in the world will not solve a short-term problem. Make that emergency account a priority. Without it, you only end up doing one thing when faced with an emergency and that is to create debt.

(2) Let your goals determine the amount of your emergency account.

Keeping 6 months of expenses in cash has always been the guideline for emergency accounts. Personally, I think that the emergency account amount should coincide with a person’s goals and objectives. Everyone has a different feel good level when it comes to holding cash. For some, it might be a large number. For others, it might be just enough to pay for a major breakdown in an appliance or car.

I determine the amount for an emergency account to fall into 2 categories. First, there is the amount for the repair bill that comes up. I typically put aside $5,000 to $7,000 to cover that type of emergency. Then there is the loss of income due to job loss.

You figure out that amount by determining ahead of time how much you would need each month minus any luxuries. Then determine what type of unemployment insurance you would receive each month. The difference would be funded from the emergency account. Take that amount that is still needed and multiply it by the number of months you want to fund. Personally, I like to see a year’s worth of expenses in the bank. However, that is specific to me and my situation.

(3) Be careful about being tempted to search for higher interest rates.

It is important to accept two things about emergency accounts. First, they aren’t there to make you money and act as an investment. They are there to be available and keep you out of financial harm in the event that an emergency occurs. Second, this low interest rate environment is our reality and probably is not going away anytime soon.

There is a distinction between the going rate for a savings account and a rate that is higher. For example, if the going rate is 1% and you can get 3% somewhere else, you need to know that there is risk involved. Companies that are paying out higher interest rates are doing so because they are desperate for money. As a result, there could be the possibility that you would be putting your emergency account at great risk by giving them your money.

(4) Understand how FDIC insurance works and never hold more than the insurance limits at a bank.

The FDIC was established in 1933 as a response to the banking crisis brought on by the Great Depression. Since then, no depositor has ever lost a single penny of FDIC-insured funds.

The FDIC insures up to $250,000 per depositor per bank. If you have a joint account with two depositors, each depositor has $250,000 limits of insurance, which increases the coverage on a joint account up to $500,000.

These higher levels went into effect during the financial crisis to give a level of confidence to depositors. On December 31, 2013 the limits are expected to return to $100,000 per depositor down from $250,000

It was announced today that business accounts have unlimited protection until the end of this year and that could be extended until December 2011.

So how is the FDIC fund doing? Well they have had to insure the assets of 202 banks that have thus far failed.

According to sources, the fund which covers customer deposits when a bank fails slipped into the red last fall for the first time since 1991. The funds deficit continued to balloon during the final three months of the year to nearly $21 billion – the largest deficit on record.

Regardless of if they are in the red or not, the Government would be forced to continue to cover losses. The FDIC has 702 banks on their troubled bank list. It is probably a good idea to check that list. You can go to www.problembanklist.com for more information.

Tags: 401(k), banks, Bob Brooks, cash, emergency fund, FDIC insurance, goals, Government, interest rates, savings account

My favorite movie of all-time is the 1987 movie Wall Street. I have probably watched that movie 30 plus times. Well, Wall Street II is due to be released this September. Clusterstock.com released an interesting chart yesterday showing what has happened both times when a Wall Street movie has been released.

In 1987, the release of Wall Street preceded the second biggest stock market crash in the history. The only other movie titled Wall Street was released in 1929. That original version of Wall Street preceded the biggest crash in stock market history.

In the 87 version, the main character, Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, had a famous move line. At a stockholder meeting he says, “Greed is good.” Apparently greed is not so good considering the release of these Wall Street movies coincided with the two largest stock market crashes on record. Hopefully, we will not see a sequel to that one when Wall Street II is released this fall.

Tags: Bob Brooks, Great Depression, stock market crash, Wall Street

You might want to put that Dow 11,000 party hat away for the time being. Evidence of trouble ahead is getting much louder. There are predictive indicators that would suggest that trouble is on the horizon. These indicators simply suggest that risk levels are escalating. They aren’t necessarily a great timing mechanism. At the same time, as a stock market investor, you don’t want to ignore them.

They have been appearing throughout the first quarter.

(1) Percentage of Mutual Fund Managers in Cash Holdings

This has always been a great indicator. When mutual fund managers hold low levels of cash, it has always been a sign that the market is headed for trouble.

We are currently at the record level of low cash reserves held as in 2007 when the market turned into a bear market and in 1987 when we experienced the second greatest stock market crash of all time.

(2) The January Indicator

The old saying goes “so goes January so goes the rest of the year.” During the last 59 years, January has had a negative return 23 times. If you will recall, we had a negative January this year. Of those years where there was a negative January, 56% the stock market produced a negative result for the year.

(3) P/E Ratios

I will resist getting into the mechanics of how a Price to Earnings Ratio works and its relation to the stock market. You don’t need to understand how all of that works to get the point. The bottom line is that new bull markets start when P/E ratios are low. Bull markets end when the P/E ratio gets too high.

The top of the bull market in 2007 P/E was 25.5

The top of the bull market in 2000 P/E was 44.2 (due to internet bubble)

The top of the bull market in 1966 P/E was 24.1

The top of the bull market in 1937 P/E was 22.2

The top of the bull market in 1929 P/E was 32.5

The top of the bull market in 1902 P/E was 25.1

According to Robert Schuller’s valuation model, which looks at reality and makes no assumptions about the future, the current P/E ratio is 25!

(4) The December Low Indicator

Lucien Hooper, a Forbes columnist and analyst, coined a stock market warning sign called the December Low Indicator. If the stock market anytime during the first quarter goes below the lowest price level of the preceding December, a sell signal takes place. This occurred during the first quarter.

The Stock Market Almanac further researched this sign and found that this has occurred 30 times since 1952. If you get the combination of a negative January along with the December low indicator, the stock market has ended negative for the year 75% of the time.

(5) Decennial Cycle – 10th year of the decade

The 10th year of a decade has carried some significance. Tenth years have the worst record within the Decennial Cycle and 2010 is a midterm election year, which has the second worst record of the 4 year presidential election cycle. Of the last 12 occurrences dating back to 1890, the stock market lost money 8 out of the 12 times during the 10th year. The average loss has been -7.2%.

Year % gain or loss

1890 -14.10

1900 + 7.00

1910 -17.09

1920 -32.90

1930 -33.80

1940 -12.70

1950 +17.60

1960 -9.30

1970 4.80

1980 14.90

1990 -4.30

2000 -6.20

2010 ?????

(6) Low Volume

This is one thing that really perplexes the market pros. If you have a strong rally, typically you have strong buying volume. There are a lot of buyers stepping up to the plate. A hallmark of market tops is a rising stock market on low rally. If anything, it is a warning sign. Today, we have very low volume on the way up.

The number one job of Wall Street is to convince the world that risk doesn’t exist. They would prefer if investors just go back to sleep and not pay attention. The signs of risk are building.

Tags: Bob Brooks, December Low Indicator, Decennial Cycle, January Indicator, P/E Ratio, Stock Market, Wall Street

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the Congressional Budget Office or CBO could be very off with their estimates on healthcare. The problem with these types of numbers is the enormous room for error as well as the fact that they are forced to work with the numbers created by politicians. Need I say more? This is why it was a joke to think that the politicians that were wavering on healthcare were convinced to vote yes based on those bogus numbers. Greenspan is jus noting the obvious. If these numbers are wrong, this could be a disaster. This was an excerpt of the interview with Greenspan.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told me the probability that the CBO was too rosy in its projections of health care costs is “much higher than we would like”. “You have to ask yourself, ‘What happens if we are wrong?’”, Greenspan said in my exclusive “This Week” interview. The consequences, he ominously warned, “are very severe”.

TAPPER: The president signed massive health care reform legislation into law a few weeks ago. You have expressed concern about the legislation, as it was making its way through the process, about whether or not it did enough to contain costs. What did you think about the final legislation? Does it contain costs enough?

GREENSPAN: Well, the CBO, incidentally, Congressional Budget Office, which is really a first-rate operation, says that it does. The problem is not their estimates, but the range of potential error in those estimates.

And when you’re dealing with an economy in which debt is becoming — federal debt is becoming ever increasingly a problem, it strikes me that when you’re dealing with public policy and you’re in a position where you have to ask yourself, “What happens if we are wrong?”

In other words, in the case now, where our buffer between our capacity to borrow and our actual debt is narrowing, for the first time, I think, in the American history, there’s a question, supposing we are wrong on the cost estimates, and, indeed, they are actually much higher than the best estimates can generate, the consequences are very severe,
whereas if they are too high, it’s very easy to adjust.

So I think it’s — it’s — there’s an issue over and above the question of what’s the best cost estimate. There’s a policy strategy here which I think requires us to lean in an ever more conservative area with respect to judging…

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: So it might have been too rosy, the projections, you’re saying?

GREENSPAN: Possibly. I don’t know that. But I do know that the probability that it might be is much higher than we would like.

Tags: Alan Greenspan, Bob Brooks, Congressional Budget Office, healthcare

Well there is one thing that you can say about financial crisis. All of the fraud and the con that was going on leading up to the financial crisis has its way of bubbling to the surface and I have to say some pretty ugly stories are coming out of Wall Street.

The unbelievable story of what allegedly happened at Lehman Brothers came out last week. It begs the question as to the real reason the Government allowed them to fail by not bailing them out?

In 2008, it was the failure of Lehman Brothers that almost brought down the entire financial system. This was the one financial institution that the government chose not to bail out. This is where the stimulus was instituted.

A report released within the past few weeks tells of a story of fraud and even criminal activity.

Lehman Brothers had billions of dollars of worthless investments on their books. At the end of every quarter, Lehman Brothers like every other publicly traded corporation has to show their profits and losses. Bonuses are paid to executives based on that information and the value of the stock price is affected by that information. Needless to say, the accuracy of that information is extremely important.

Unfortunately, those worthless investments created a problem. They definitely had a negative effect on the company earnings. So, what if they could be removed from the books? That is exactly what Lehman did.

They used an accounting trick called a reverse repo. Basically, they went through the process of doing a short-term loan from another bank. In exchange for that short-term loan, they would turn over as collateral the worthless loans (that only they knew were worthless) to the bank that made the short-term loan.

Now, ethically they should have reported that on their books as a short-term loan. However, that is not what reportedly happened. They reported it as a sale of assets. So that shows the worthless investments permanently off of their books and it shows billions of dollars sitting in cash.

They report these great numbers and then they reverse the transaction putting the worthless investments back on their books.

It was complete fraud. Based on these fraudulent numbers, investors thought things were good at Lehman which would drive the stock price up. Then the officers would make bonus money off of the fraudulent accounting numbers. Also this attracted other money from other countries because Lehman looked so strong. The CEO would come out and say everything was in good shape. The worst of it is that the auditor, knowing they were fraudulent numbers, reportedly signed off on them.

The CEO signed off on the reports. He can and, if proven true, probably will go to jail for a long time. It is a violation of the law.

This begs the question. What did the government know? They almost had to have discovered that this was going on. It made no sense to bail everyone out and let Lehman fail. We know that the government has the capacity to bail out companies using billions of dollars. Could it be that the government was trying to burn the evidence? After all, if the dead body is sitting the house, wouldn’t burning the house down and destroying the evidence be the best course of action? It makes you wonder if the government burned down the house of Lehman.

Tags: bailouts, Bob Brooks, Debt, financial crisis, fraud, Government, Lehman Brothers

Surprise, Surprise…As if no one saw this coming. There is only one way to solve the out of control deficit problem when the politicians will not cut spending. You raise everyone’s taxes. White House Economic Advisor Paul Volcker went ahead and started paving the way yesterday by “suggesting” that we have a National Sales Tax…and I predict that this is only the beginning.

You should be very nervous when the White House starts suggesting that we adopt a “European” based tax model. He then went further suggesting an additional carbon and energy tax. Well, it is nice to be modeling things after socialistic countries. After all, we took our healthcare model from other socialistic countries.

I just have one request. President Obama and the rest of the politicians, could you just start telling the truth instead of hiding behind the politics? How many times have you heard that only the rich (over $250,000 a year) will be affected by tax hikes. He is going to protect all of the middle and lower income people. Although true he will not adjust the tax brackets on those making less than $250,000. However, he will get everyone else with other taxes which will be just as bad. Just admit it, taxes are going up on everyone because the politicians refuse to stop spending money.

The best part of the story is what you and I are paying for with higher taxes. According to Glen Thrush’s blog, this is a list of 10 Government money wasters. Believe me this just scratches the surface.

1. Studying radioactive rabbit poop ($330k)

2. Golf cart tax credit (Up to $5,500 per)

3. Syracuse study of co-ed sex habits ($219k)

4. Sunset Strip facelift ($1 million)

5. Renovation of facility to analyze invasive bugs ($2.3 million)

6. Snow-making machines for Duluth, Minn. ($6 million)

7. Social science survey of Facebook use. ($498k)

8. Pet neutering in Wichita. ($380k)

9. Florida “turtle tunnel.” ($3.4 million)

10. Rockies/Diamondbacks training complex. ($30 million)

I don’t know about you but I could care a less about radioactive rabbit poop. I loved the good old days when the politics and/or lies were not so obvious.

Tags: Bob Brooks, deficit, Government, Obama, politicians, socialism, taxes