The Sunday 'Report;' 12/12/2010

What 'National Pamphleteers' Don't Report:

Top Silver Plays: Endeavour Silver, Hecla Mining and Mag Silver
by: Shawn Wang December 08, 2010
Why people are long silver. Unless you have been living under a figurative rock, you know that Bernanke's QE2 has been swinging markets around since it was announced in August - at first positively, on a Pavlovian response mirroring what happened after QE1, and then negatively, after the announced numbers failed to impress. If you are a little better informed, you will know that gold has been a major play of everyone in the markets, from Joe Sixpack to John Paulson, on a thesis of[....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/240738-top-silver-plays-endeavour-silver-hecla-mining-and-mag-silver?source=email_the_daily_dispatch

Why You Need to Get Long In Silver Immediately

    If you haven’t already bought silver, the market just gave you an extraordinary reason to take action… right now.  In mid-October, I wrote about a coming rally in the U.S. dollar. Bearish bets against the currency were near record levels… and Ben Bernanke was telling the world he was ready to print money to prop up the economy. When a trade gets extremely popular, it’s like passengers crowding themselves on one side of a ship. It’s natural for the ship to tip over and throw them all into the water, then lurch in the opposite direction.  As you can see from the chart below, that rally came… and the dollar [....]
http://www.personalliberty.com/asset-and-wealth-protection/why-you-need-to-get-long-in-silver-immediately/?eiid=&rmid=2010_12_09_PLA_[PIZ5010D]&rrid=387432349

The 10 worst states for retirees
    Plenty of folks are aware of the best states for retirees. But what are the 10 worst states in which to spend your golden years?  People of Illinois, California, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Nevada — you probably already know the answer.  The list, with Illinois leading the pack, comes from website TopRetirements.com. According to John Brady, president of TopRetirements.com, the 10 states earn this dubious distinction largely because of three factors: fiscal health, taxation, climate. See the worst-state rankings at TopRetirements.com.
    Worst retirement states Illinois and California top the list of the worst states to retire to, according to TopRetirements.com. Marketwatch's Robert Powell explains the factors that landed these states and others on the list.  As for fiscal health, six of the 10 worst states for retirees on TopRetirements.com’s list were among those just identified by a Pew Center for States report as being in “fiscal peril.”
    The report, "Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril," showed that “some of the same pressures that have pushed California toward economic disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of other states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country.”
Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin joined California as the 10 most troubled states, according to Pew’s analysis. Read the Pew Center for States report [....]
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-worst-states-for-retirees-2010-12-09?pagenumber=1

This bomb just stopped ticking
[BLOGGER NOTE: At the end of THIS ARTICLE, I've posted important NATIONWIDE taxing URLs!]
Public-retiree costs set to skyrocket
New Yorkers will be coping with the fallout for years to come.
    In a new report released yesterday by the institute's Empire Center, we find that pension contributions will skyrocket over the next several years, because the state's pension funds made risky bets in the stock market and lost -- leaving taxpayers, not public employees, to pay the bill.  For example, school districts will pay $900 million into the New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS) in the current fiscal year, but will be expected to come up with about $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2015-16. And that assumes that the fund manages to achieve its target of 8 percent return on assets for each of the next several years. If it falls short, the bill will be even larger.
    Paying for that $3.6 billion increase will require an average rise of 3.5 percent a year in school property-tax levies for all districts outside New York City -- before covering any cost increases in areas beyond pensions. (By itself, this would bust the 2 percent property-tax cap that Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo proposes.)  Meanwhile, contributions to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS), which covers non-teachers outside New York City, will more than double, boosting taxpayer costs by [....]
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/this_bomb_just_stopped_ticking_6OrfAV1pi74ZPNHQ3fa3qN

http://www.empirecenter.org/Documents/PDF/PensionExplosion.12.20102.pdf
State and local government employees in New York collect taxpayer-guaranteed pension benefits that are far more generous than those available to most private-sector workers.

(Use the calculator at left to see just how generous those benefits can be.)
http://www.empirecenter.org/pensioncalculator/
Important NATIONWIDE taxing and tax payment informational URLs:
http://lowpropertytax.net/
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTaxesWhereDoesYourStateRank.aspx
http://retirementliving.com/RLtaxes.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/26806.html
http://taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/1888.html [property taxes BY COUNTY, nationwide-helpful for those looking for states for relocation!]

Letter from Senator Demint "Why he cannot vote for Tax deal" [Entire Letter]

Dear Fellow Conservatives:

    Many of you have contacted me about the bipartisan tax deal reached between President Obama and Republican leaders. I've carefully reviewed the legislation and I wanted to explain to you why I cannot support it.
    First, I do not want to see anyone's taxes go up and I have been fighting for years to permanently extend all the tax rates. I disagree with the President that we cannot afford to extend these rates for everyone. It's the people's money and we should not raise taxes on hardworking American families.  But this bill does much more than simply extend tax rates.  For starters, it includes approximately $200 billion in new deficit spending and stimulus gimmicks. That's a lot of money that will have to be borrowed from China and repaid by our children and grandchildren. If we're going to increase spending on new programs, we must reduce other spending to pay for it.
    The bill also only extends rates for two years. We don't have a temporary economy so we shouldn't have temporary tax rates. Individuals and businesses make decisions looking at the long-term and we're not going to create jobs without giving people certainty as to what their taxes will be in future.  The bill also fails to extend all of the tax rates. It actually increases the death tax from its current rate of zero percent all the way up to 35 percent. One economic study shows that this tax increase alone will kill over 800,000 jobs over the next ten years.
    Finally, the bill now includes dozens of earmarks for special interests, including ethanol subsidies, tax breaks for film and television producers, give aways for Puerto Rican rum manufacturers, favors for auto racing track owners, and a hand out for businesses in American Samoa.  The President called Republicans "hostage takers" this week but he should be pointing his figure squarely at himself. We've known for years that these tax rates were going to expire but he did nothing about it until the last minute. Now Americans are being told they have to accept hundreds of billions in new spending and stimulus gimmicks, an increase the death tax, and a bunch of unnecessary earmarks or their taxes will go up.
    I'm not going to be bullied into voting for things that will hurt our country because politicians in Washington ignored the problem until it was a crisis.  Many of you fought hard to elect new leaders to the Senate this year with the expectation that they would fight deficit spending, tax hikes, and backroom deals. I take that commitment very seriously and I'm prepared to vote against this bill even if I'm the only one in the Senate to do so.  I appreciate the efforts made by my party's leaders to negotiate this deal but I believe Americans deserve much better. This deal should be rejected and then fixed. We can easily extend these tax rates without increasing spending once the new crop of Republican senators, including Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson, are sworn in. The President has already conceded that taxes cannot go up and we'll have more Republicans in Congress in a few weeks to fight for a better deal.
    Thank you for supporting the principles of freedom and for your continued encouragement. I will continue to do my very best to be your voice in the United States Senate.


Respectfully,
Jim DeMint
United States Senator
http://www.wesurroundrochester.com/messages/boards/thread/10155942

Lawrence Lessig: HOW our government is broken
    Please listen to his analysis carefully because this man gets it. Our government has an ever worsening disease and the pathogen is money. It enters the system through the electoral process and robs the population of representation, terminating in the death of democracy.
    America is a melting pot, a land of great diversity. So its not surprising that we disagree on many issues. But if we allow moneyed special interests to control our supposed representatives, NONE of us will get what we want. And therefore if we are to save our form of government, ALL Americans, independent of ideology, must come together to chase the money changers from the steps of the temple. Emjoy and share Lessig's talk with others.
http://www.wesurroundrochester.com/messages/boards/thread/10152101
http://tedxboston.org/videos/181-larry-lessig-by-the-people-for-the-people-how-campaign-funding-should-be-redefined-so-that-citizens-not-corporations-elect-our-leaders
http://tedxboston.org/
Til Next Sunday....