Where is the US economy headed?

Sorry, but I figured you were being a little sarcastic or tongue in cheek when you said "What a deal! " I was not implying that you did not represent the rest of the information correctly.

If somebody with good credit wants a good deal on credit, I would suggest a personal line of credit, which I had a couple of years ago at about 4.25%, which I obtained to do some home improvements but it could be spent on anything that I wanted to spend it on, and there were no fees. For anyone with bad credit, going into debt at 9.9% is still a very bad deal, especially with all the fees.

9.9% is a fab deal compaired to the average credit card rate

http://www.indexcreditcards.com/

Assuming an unpaid card balance throughout the year of $2,000.00 on the "fab deal" card, the $48 annual fee plus the $7 monthly fee alone would effectively add the equivalent of another 6.1% on the interest rate of the card, and this is not even counting the $29 setup fee or the $95 program fee, which I do not know if those are one time fees or not. Obviously, if you end up owing alot more than $2,000 on a credit card, the end result could be easier on you than a higher interest rate, but if the balance is less, the annual and monthly fees could be worse, perhaps alot worse than a card with much higher interest rate.

To me, this card is merely another form of how to rip off people that use credit cards.

You missed the part where the card has a $300 credit limit.

Isn't it great that you can get credit cards across state lines. If only we could do the same thing with health insurance.

Amen. A way to rip off vulnerable people; people living from pay check to pay check.
Don't get me started on the Pay Check Loan industry.

Right. Now thats great. The annual and monthly fees would add the equivalent of only 44% to the already 9.9%, for an effective total interest rate of only 53.9% on an unpaid balance of $300, which is apparently all that is allowed. Great fab deal!!!!!!

Double amen, rjb. The pay check loan industry is a bunch of sharks, they should be ashamed of themselves, but then again so should all the people out there selling lottery tickets and cigarettes to the poor suckers that drive up to convenience stores with "oklahoma chrome" over their windows and red tape over their tail lights. For anyone wondering, "oklahoma chrome" is duct tape.

Very poor analogy, parados. If you had to buy everything from a company headquartered in your own home state, the prices would become sky high for everything, far higher for many products and services. Simply using an example of a lousy credit card company that is selling their cards in other states is a very dumb excuse for justifying your position on health insurance.

Actually, using your argument, nobody in Washington D.C. should be able to sell anything to anybody outside of the District of Columbia, ha ha.

Its only right that they rip off the poor. We dont want to take money from the rich because they couldent invest it in the U.S.economy and make jobs. O, wait, let me rethink this.

You may wish to rethink that alright, if you are depending upon robbing the rich to feather your own nest. Last I checked, nobody ever got rich waiting for a handout or depending upon Robin Hood.

OK! Both are good points.

My only remaining concern about the federal sales tax is about how federal government refunds to those with low incomes can be managed without high costs, falsification by individuals of their actual incomes, and congressional efforts to buy votes by varying the magnitudes of those refunds. Absent a better solution, I recommend a "flat" federal sales tax, and zero federal refunds.

It is true that even if all income tax was totally eliminated, we still have the problem of payroll deductions and self employed payments into the social security and medicare insurance funds. I think it has been proposed that for low income people, a rebate would be given to them, to provide the "progressivity" that everyone seems to think is necessary anymore. At least it seems to be politically necessary. I think I would rather see most of the progressivity embedded into the system by exempting housing to a certain threshold, and exempting food at the retail level. But we already have the problem of fraud in income tax returns, so the problem you speak of would not be a new invention created by the retail sales tax. In fact, the mere fact that the collection of taxes would be much simpler with no income tax involved, there should far less fraud with merely collecting social security, medicare and possibly disbursing a rebate if that is the decided course of action, than the fraud we currently are dealing with.

Sorry, I misread this above statement from your post. I read it as a flat income tax, but you said flat federal sales tax, which I take to mean that if the sales tax should ever be adopted instead of perhaps your prefered method, you would prefer no rebates be given back, because as you point out the opportunity for fraud. That is a good point.

As I pointed out in previous posts in regard to the sales tax, it can be made to be somewhat progressive by excluding the necessities for living, and only taxing what might be considered non-essentials. So if you consider food as the most basic necessity, I would propose that to be excluded, and that has already been shown to work very well in some states, as in Colorado where food is not subject to state sales tax. I believe restaurant food is subject to tax however, although I am not sure, but I would agree that eating out is non-essential, it is basically a luxury. Also shelter should be considered essential, but I think only up to a certain threshold, because we need not exclude tax on mansions and high dollar situations, those would be a luxury. Clothing is another necessity needing debate, but here again separating necessity from dressing in luxury would be difficult. I would propose the option of possibly excluding sales tax on used clothing, perhaps all used stuff purchased at second hand stores. Transportation, another knotty subject, but here again an exemption to a certain threshold could be considered.

Even though we begin to get the impression that exempting necessities in designing the sales tax system could become moderately problematic, I still think it would be much simpler and straightforward than the current income tax code that we have. And if done correctly, the poor could live virtually free of paying much sales tax by simply limiting their purchases to the necessities. If they insist upon buying junk that is non-essential, then they pay tax, but they should pay tax and help support the massive federal bureaucracy that they have helped create by voting the people into power that have built this monstrosity of a government. Also another point, we now use tax policy to socially engineer society, and that can still occur very effectively by encouraging the poor to buy less frivolously and more on essentials. Those that have the money will be happy to still buy the luxuries and discretionary products and services.

Okie, yes, "if the sales tax should ever be adopted instead of [my] prefered method, [then I] would prefer no rebates be given back, because [of] the opportunity for fraud."

Exempting necessities is a far better way to reduce the flat sales tax load on the poor than would be tax rebates.

Both systems, a flat sales tax or a flat income tax, would each be far better sytems than we have now. However, I do not want both tax systems adopted. One or the other is enough. Also, in addition to abolishing all current federal sytems of personal income tax, I want to abolish all current systems of income taxes, inheritance taxes, and investment taxes.

Good afternoon.
This Is Not So Good:
The BBC reports that holdings of U.S. debt fell by a record $53bn in December, breaking the previous record set last April. The decrease was led by China which reduced its holdings by $34.2bn to $755.4bn. Japan is now the largest foreign government owner of our debt, replacing China.
The drop in demand may mean that the U.S. will have to pay higher interest rates to attract purchasers as the nation is poised to rack up a record deficit.
The dollar dropped sharply against the euro and, as a result, crude oil prices jumped 4.1% despite large inventories and relatively weak demand.

Which major credit card companies aren't located in SD okie? They moved there because they could sell across state lines while SD allowed them to charge any rate they wanted, for no other reason.

It appears that China is beginning to turn the screws, as I wondered might happen in this thead
http://able2know.org/topic/140875-1

China has bigger tools in its toolbox then refusing to buy treasury debt, this looks like a message that they are prepared to use them. I noticed with interest last week a plant in the media by China saying that they are no longer willing to follow America's lead in economic matters. Between that and this i'd say that China's message is clear.

When it comes to finance, America is no longer in charge.

Until we rid ourselves of rhe Obama debt merchants, our economy will continue to head toward its collapse.

The Obama debt merchants are thieves, and thieves rarely if ever stop stealing before they are held accountable. They reject the principle, if you do not earn it, you do not deserve it.

Care to place a bet on the economy ican? I will bet 2010 has in increase in GDP. I am willing to put up $1000. What about you? Do you want to make some money on your prediction?


Heck, I bet you can find lots of people willing to bet $1000 with you on whether the GDP growth is positive in 2010.

LOL. Good old Joe.