ISIS Demands Money for Hostages
ISIS now demand $200 million in ransom or they will behead two Japanese hostages. This seems to be retaliation for last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged $200 million in non-military assistance to support countries affected by the campaign against ISIS during his six-day Middle East tour. This Islamic State has now released a video threatening to kill two Japanese hostages unless they receive a $200 million ransom in the next 72 hours.
Japan will not pay such a demand. The two will become heroes and ISIS now risks providing the very support needed in Japan to rekindle its military establishment. Concerns about China have been brewing. Nevertheless, all countries need a diversion from their fiscal mismanagement and historically there is nothing better than war to accomplish that.
We have to remain concerned about the target year 2017 on our war models. We already have seen a rise in tensions with the start of the trend in 2014. Civil Unrest has also risen sharply. It certainly appears these folks are begging for a religious war against fellow Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Shinto. They have not left out anyone so far. They are more-likely-than-not going to destabilize the Middle East for as oil prices fall and budgets are forced to be cut, we will even see a rise in tensions throughout the region. We should expect the turnoil to pick up in the Middle East come 2016.
Argentine Prosecutor Killed Before Exposing Behind the Curtain
Prosecutor most likely murdered before he was to appear before Parliament in Argentina to expose what has been going on behind the curtain. See – corruption is just everywhere with no exceptions. What goes on behind the curtain is far worse than anyone could imagine.
The Fair Tax Bill is Introduced into Congress
The Georgia Republican U.S. Senators. David Perdue and Johnny Isakson have introduced the Fair Tax Act of 2015 in Congress. They are taking our proposal we submitted to Congress back in 1996 as the foundation. The act would repeal the federal income tax along with all corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes and gift and estate taxes, and it would establish a national sales tax on all new goods and services. The fair tax act would also dissolve the Internal Revenue Service.
There are other aspects they have added. The Fair Tax would raise the sales tax on all new goods or services to 23% but would eliminate all other taxes most American’s are accustomed to paying, such as income and payroll taxes. Employees would earn almost their entire paycheck tax-free. They also want to include “prebates,” which would give an advanced refund to households each month so purchases up to the poverty level would be tax-free. For instance, at the poverty level, a couple would have an annual consumption allowance of $23,340. The monthly prebate through the Fair Tax would be a little more than $447, or $5,368 a year, which is 23% of the annual consumption allowance. This wouldNOT eliminate the IRS for someone would then have to keep track of the rebates and people would still have to report income to qualify and thus there would still need to be audit. The chances of this getting off the ground are probably somewhere between -10 and 0.
Back in the 90s, I donated my time to try to help the country avoid what our computer was warning we are moving into right now. I testified before Congresson Tax Reform. I even debated between Steve Forbes and the Flat Tax and the Democrats tax’em till the die policy and then grab what’s left. I tried to save Social Security transforming it into a wealth fund that would actually invest in equities when the Dow was 3500. I could not defeat my own forecasts.
Bill Archer supported the retail sales tax and Dick Army the flat tax. Dick was the Majority leader at the time. I met with him in his office. He had his cowboy boots on and his feet up on the desk smoking away. We discussed the efforts to reform taxes. He told me – Marty, I cannot support a retail sales tax for without a constitutional amendment, when the Democrats got back in, you would then have both. I then looked at Dick and said – You are right.
I gave up trying to help or trying to defeat my own model. I could not. It will be correct because you cannot alter the trend even when you know what will happen.
The Democrats want to raise taxes to 70%. This is the goal behind the curtain. You will have Obama preaching higher taxes to reduce the middle class. They will never get the benefits and the higher taxes will reduce economic growth and send unemployment higher. Here is that forecast from 2010. We will exceed the highs of the Great Depression and this will filter into the rising civil unrest and it is a key reason Obama wants to take all guns from the public – the criminals will always have guns since they do not buy them in stores anyway. If Obama has his way, ONLY the Police and Criminals will have guns and he bets they will just rob the people like the police so there is no worry about revolution coming from them.
The only way forward is to eliminate taxation at the federal level altogether and print in print the money needed to fund government. End the borrowing since 70% of the national debt is interest expenditures anyway. Had we printed instead of borrowing, the debt would have been paid off by now and unemployment would have been next to nothing for all money would then have to invest in the private sector resulting in huge job creation.
Perhaps we can accomplish this AFTER the crash.