Wednesday, June 29, 2011 21:56:29
I was at a neighborhood meeting tonight to get in my two cents, or two minutes in this case, about various projects being built nearby. About seventy-five percent of the proceedings is repetition of what someone else has said. So I keep half-an-ear on the proceedings, and grind through articles and docs I’ve printed out for such an occasion. Yea, I know, ‘print out’? No, I’m not a Luddite, more of a ‘late adopter,’ living in an area where the lathe-and-plaster of the California bungalows and the concrete and steel of the public buildings often defeat 3G, 4G and wi-fi all at once. Besides, I have a red pen and like to use it on the articles, underlining things of interest, and writing my own thoughts down.
For example:
Reuters is doing a series on corporate secrecy, not in the Caymans or Switzerland, but here in the good ol’ USA
Specifically, Delaware, Nevada and, focus for this article, Wyoming. The small brick house at 2710 Thomes Ave, Cheyenne, Wyoming is corporate headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services…and over 2000 other corporations. I learned about ‘shelf’ companies, which are paper companies that have been sitting on a shelf, gathering a credit history, bank account history, and tax history, doing nothing but waiting for someone who needs to look long-standing and respectable to come along. The older the shelf company, the higher the price to buy it.
Almost none of this is regulated, and only three states require companies to disclose who owns them. Sen. Levin keeps trying to get a bill passed, but lobbyists, and the Nat’l Assoc of Secs of State keep getting it killed. Watch for the ‘Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Act’ to come around again.
Meanwhile…
The Berkman Center has published an exhaustive analysis of the state of Broadband in the 19 countries in the OECD. An excellent analysis of where it’s been and how it got to where it is now, and where various nations are trying to take it. Bottom line: American exceptionalism strikes again: once you get away from DSL, America has the least penetration, and the highest prices for the lowest speeds. We get beaten by almost every country in Europe, and we either are or will get our asses handed to us by Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Yet (does this sound familiar?) we spend more per year per person in infrastructure than any others.
I recommend reading the executive summary. It’s only seven pages, and the one color chart says a lot.
While you’re watching ‘Congressional DebtMatch 2011’ on TV, you might take a look at the CBO’s economic outlook for the next few years. Granted, I just read the summary, but they boil it down pretty well. After they get done waving their hands about how much they can’t know in advance, and how things will undoubtedly change, they project three economic paths.
The ‘extended-baseline’ scenario assumes Congress essentially does nothing new…so the ACA kicks in, the Bush tax cuts finally expire, and the AMT starts hitting more people. GNP might go down 2% by 2035, and revenues would climb to as much as 23% of GDP, significantly higher than recent decades. Which would reduce the rate of debt increase significantly, but not reverse it.
The ‘alternative fiscal’ projection is much bleaker, assuming the Bush cuts continue, and more tax changes would keep revenues at or below the usual 18% of GDP. I call this the Republican plan. Note the CBO’s use of the word ‘bleaker.’ Debt skyrockets, to almost 200% of GDP by 2035. Frighteningly, the CBO says that many budget analysts think this is the more realistic scenario, given the current policy situation. (See: Republicans hate America.) This scenario results in GNP plunging almost 6% by 2025, and by between 7 and 18% by ten years later.
There’s lots more detail just in the three and a half pages of the Summary. I got a perspective on the ‘run the nation’s budget like you do your own’ meme the GOP is selling. Our national debt, that’s everything the US owes, was about 40% of GDP when Bush left, and almost 70% now. That’s total debt versus annual production. If you total up your car loan, your credit card debt, and the balance on your mortgage, is that less than your annual gross? If we should run the national budget like our own, America’s got a lot of debt to rack up yet. Let’s (Democratic) Party!
746 ~ Wednesday, June 29, 2011 22:48:17
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