HOUSE GOP’S CORPORATE TAX SCHEME HAS ITS REPUBLICAN SKEPTICS
BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans face opposition to their plan to overhaul the way corporations pay federal taxes from a powerful group of lawmakers – other Republicans.
“I’m not very enthused about it,” said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee and the Senate’s top tax writer.
Another skeptic is John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
“The question is, who is going to pay the tax?” Cornyn asked. “Is it going to be our citizens?”
Seeking to overhaul the tax code for the first time in 30 years, the House GOP plan would scrap the 35 percent tax on corporate profits, which is riddled with exemptions, deductions and credits. It would be replaced with something called a “border adjustment tax.”
President Trump’s Action to Delay Harmful Fiduciary Rule
February 04,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
WASHINGTON DC, Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ann Wagner (R-MO), who were with President Trump today at the White House, made the following comments regarding the President’s executive action on the Obama Administration’s harmful fiduciary rule:
Chairman Hensarling: “I was proud to stand next to President Trump in the Oval Office today as he signed two important executive actions that represent the beginning of the end of the Dodd-Frank mistake and the start of a new day that will bring more freedom and economic opportunity to all Americans.
“No unaccountable Washington bureaucrats should get in the way of hardworking Americans and their ability to make financial decisions that work best for their families. Republicans want to empower Americans to make their own financial decisions, but the Obama administration’s so-called fiduciary rule instead empowered unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. That means costs will go up and choices will go down – just like with Obamacare. Republicans believe if you like your retirement planner, you should be able to keep your retirement planner. If you like your financial adviser, you should be able to keep your financial adviser.
Chairman Wagner: “Today is a great day for low- and middle-income American families. I applaud President Trump’s executive order to delay the Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule, listening to the concerns of everyday Americans and protecting their ability to access retirement investment advice. This delay will allow the Administration to potentially repeal the rule entirely, and within this time, I will continue working toward a permanent solution in Congress through legislation to help preserve investment choice, access and affordability while ensuring all families are receiving investment advice that is truly in their best interest.”
Ridgewood NJ, After President Trump today said Congress should make financial regulatory reform a priority to “help striving Americans get the credit they need to realize their dreams” and Vice President Pence said “dismantling Dodd-Frank” is a top legislative priority for the Trump Administration, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) issued the following statement:
“No bureaucrat in Washington should be able to tell hardworking Americans what kind of credit card, bank account, mortgage or retirement advice they can have, but that’s exactly what Dodd-Frank does. As the President and Vice President have said, Dodd-Frank makes it harder for people to get loans to buy a home or start a small business. Consumers are paying more in fees and are losing benefits and access to services they want and need. Instead of ending ‘too big to fail,’ Dodd-Frank institutionalizes bailouts for big banks. Dodd-Frank’s regulations give Wall Street a competitive advantage over community banks and credit unions. In fact, since Dodd-Frank became law the big banks have gotten bigger and the small banks are fewer.
“Fulfilling the Trump Administration’s pledge to dismantle Dodd-Frank this year is essential to leveling the playing field, building a healthy economy and offering every American greater opportunities to achieve financial independence.
“Republicans on the Financial Services Committee are eager to work with the President and his administration to unclog the arteries of our financial system so the lifeblood of capital can flow more freely and create jobs. The Financial CHOICE Act, our bold and forward looking plan, replaces Dodd-Frank with new policies to protect consumers by holding Wall Street and Washington accountable, end bailouts and unleash America’s economic potential.
“Replacing the Dodd-Frank mistake is necessary if we ever hope to enjoy a healthy economy and make America great again.”
In contrast to U.S. stocks, most major stock markets around the globe haven’t enjoyed the same postelection bump, and many remain far below their record levels
By
JULIE WERNAU
Updated Jan. 25, 2017 5:02 p.m. ET
Donald Trump never promised to make the rest of the world great again.
U.S. stock markets have rallied since the president’s victory more than two months ago, rising on improved economic data and hopes Mr. Trump can stimulate the economy with tax cuts and infrastructure spending while rolling back regulations.
But most major stock markets around the globe haven’t enjoyed the same postelection bump, and many remain far below their record levels.
Ridgewood NJ, our friends at Park Wealth Managementreminded us that the Economist invented the Big Mac index in 1986 as an entertaining way to assess whether currencies were at the “correct” levels. The index reflects the idea that countries’ exchange rates should balance so the same product (in this case, a hamburger) costs the same in two different countries when the price is denominated in the same currency. After updating the index on January 11, 2017, The Economist reported the “all-meaty” dollar was stronger than usual:
“The dollar is now trading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms. Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar-denominated debts. American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage against foreign competition. And, American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.”
A Big Mac in the United States cost about $5.06 last week. In the Euro area, the price was about $4.06 and in Britain $3.73. A Big Mac is cheapest in Russia ($2.15) and most expensive in Switzerland ($6.35). Here are the prices of a Big Mac (a.k.a. the Maharaja Mac in India) in a few other locales:
It should be noted the Big Mac index is not a perfect measurement tool. The price of a burger should be less in countries with lower labor costs and more in countries with higher labor costs.
When prices are adjusted for labor (using gross domestic product per person), the Brazilian real is the world’s most overvalued currency, followed by Pakistan and Thailand. The most undervalued currencies include Egypt, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
Park Wealth Management is located at 216 East Ridgewood Ave , 2nd Floor Ridgewood NJ 07450 201 689-2020
Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse-off than you. Millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis by the advocacy group Young Invincibles. (Jan. 13)
WASHINGTON – The House approved bipartisan legislation on Thursday to ensure that the benefits of proposed regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) justify the costs to jobs, economic growth, and capital formation.
The SEC Regulatory Accountability Act, sponsored by Financial Services Committee member Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), passed 243-184.
“Ill-advised laws like the Dodd-Frank Act empower unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to callously hand down crushing regulations without adequately considering what impact those regulations have on jobs,” said Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). “The true cost of Washington red tape includes the jobs not created, the small businesses not started and the dreams of our children not fulfilled.”
Under the bill, before issuing a regulation the SEC will be required to:
identify the nature and source of the problem its proposed regulation is meant to address;
utilize the SEC’s Chief Economist to assess the costs and benefits of a proposed regulation to ensure the benefits justify the costs;
identify and assess available alternatives; and
ensure that any regulations are consistent and written in plain language.
Further, the legislation requires the SEC to engage in a retrospective review of its regulations every five years and conduct post-adoption impact assessments of major rules.
Ridgewood NJ, Small business Optimism soared in December by the most since 1980 as expectations about the economy’s prospects improved dramatically in the aftermath of the Trump election.
The National Federation of Independent Business gauge jumps to 105.8 in month after presidential election and expectations for business conditions are highest since 2002
The National Federation of Independent Business’s (NFIB) index jumped 7.4 points last month to 105.8, the highest since the end of 2004, from 98.4. While seven of the 10 components increased in December, 73 percent of the monthly advance was due to more upbeat views about the outlook for sales and the economy, the Washington-based group said.
1. In 2014, the top 400 US taxpayers based on Adjusted Gross Income earned $127 billion collectively, and they paid $29.4 billion collectively in federal income taxes at an average tax rate of 23.13% (see chart above). Just those 400 taxpayers paid more than 2% of all the federal income taxes collected in 2014 ($29.4 billion out of $1.377 trillion).
2. In 2014, the bottom 50% of taxpayers, a group totaling nearly 70 million Americans, earned collectively more than $1 trillion and paid $37.7 billion in federal income taxes at average tax rate of about 3.4% (see chart above).
Update:
3. According to the IRS, the top 0.001 percent of US taxpayers (N = 1,396) paid $49.7 billion in federal income tax in 2014, which is $12 billion more than the taxes collected from the entire bottom 50% (see updated chart above). Also, because of the progressive income tax schedule, note that the bottom 50% of US taxpayers reported about 5 times as much income as the top 1/1000 of 1% (more than $1 trillion vs. $207 billion), but paid $12 billion (and 24%) less in income taxes in 2014.
On Wall Street, the rising dollar has been one of the most visible signals of growing optimism in the U.S. economy; for many other countries, it spells trouble.
By
IRA IOSEBASHVILI
Updated Jan. 1, 2017 10:03 a.m. ET
On Wall Street, the rising dollar has been one of the most visible signals of growing optimism in the U.S. economy. For many other countries, it spells trouble.
Most analysts expect the U.S. currency to strengthen in 2017, extending a gain that has boosted the value of the dollar by more than one-third since the U.S. credit downgrade in 2011.
That expectation is mostly because a strengthening economy appears likely to enable the Federal Reserve to enact its plan for multiple rate increases in 2017. Higher rates make it more attractive to hold dollar-denominated assets, attracting money into the U.S.
French woman Lilly is in a relationship with a robot she 3D-printed herself She and the robot have been living together for a year and are now ‘engaged’ Lilly describes herself as a ‘proud robosexual’ and says they will marry
By Khaleda Rahman For Daily Mail Australia
A French woman has revealed she is in love with a robot and determined to marry it.
Lilly’s partner is a robot called InMoovator, who she 3D-printed herself and has been living with for a year.
On her Twitter page, where she goes by ‘Lilly InMoovator,’ she says: ‘I’m a proud robosexual, we don’t hurt anybody, we are just happy.’
Now, Lilly is reportedly engaged to the robot and says they will marry when human-robot marriage is legalised in France.
PUBLISHED: 19:10 EST, 13 December 2016 | UPDATED: 19:10 EST, 13 December 2016
US technology giant IBM said Tuesday it would hire 25,000 people in the country over the next four years, a day before President-elect Donald Trump meets with tech industry leaders.
About 6,000 of those hirings will occur in 2017, IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty said in an opinion article published in the newspaper USA Today.
IBM, which has undertaken in recent years a restructuring of its activities, will invest $1 billion on employee training and development in the next four years, said the IBM president, chairman and CEO.
Ridgewood NJ, Americans are living longer than ever, which means retirement could last 20 to 30 years for some people – maybe even longer.
That’s great for those who remain in reasonably good health and retire with plenty of financial stability.
But lengthy life spans also increase the odds that many seniors will deplete their savings, face debilitating health problems and need to turn to their children for financial help or caregiving.
That’s a far cry from the kind of retirement they dreamt of over the years.
“I’ve done focus groups where one of the chief concerns that comes up is people don’t want to become a burden on their kids,” says Jeannette Bajalia, a retirement-income planner, president of Woman’s Worth® (www.womans-worth.com) and author of Retirement Done Right and Wi$e Up Women.
It’s really too late to do much, though, when you’re 80 and your life starts unraveling. That’s why it’s important to plan ahead to get your finances and health in the best shape possible, she says. Among some of the points worth thinking about:
• Unanticipated health care costs. It’s estimated that the average married couple will need to pay up to $250,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare during their retirement, beyond what Medicare and most Medicare Supplements will pay. “We’re beginning to see a lot of cost shifting out of both Medicare programs and private health plans, which means more out-of-pocket healthcare costs,” Bajalia says. “It’s entirely possible that the savings you thought would allow you to travel or to at least pay all the bills could be gobbled up by medical expenses. As you plan for retirement, you should make it a priority to discuss this concern with your adviser so the two of you can look at what options you might have to try to keep that from happening.” • Long-term care planning. When it comes to aging, consider the possibility you might have to receive home healthcare or live in a nursing home or an assisted-living facility. The costs of such care can be daunting. For example, studies have shown that home healthcare can cost $50,000 or more per year, and nursing home care can run as high as 90,000 per year. “You don’t want your kids to have to pay for that,” Bajalia says. There are ways to prepare, such as buying a long-term care insurance policy or checking with a financial professional to help you develop a strategy for protecting your assets from nursing-home claims, she says. • Self-care. Not every financial professional may do this, but Bajalia says she believes it’s important to integrate health education and a lot of self-care into a retirement plan. Spending money on preventive health routines to take care of yourself now can help you avoid significant health problems that lead to even costlier expenses later on, she says. Research is now telling us that longevity is over 70 percent lifestyle.
“I know it’s important to older people that they be able to remain independent as long as possible and not have to turn to their children to help,” Bajalia says. “They just need to remember that careful planning is the route to accomplishing that.”
And one of the planning tools would be to help fund long term care insurance for your aging parents to keep assets in their estates, she says, so long term care is not simply for yourself but for your aging parents.
About Jeannette Bajalia
Jeannette Bajalia, author of Retirement Done Right and Wi$e Up Women, is president and principal advisor of Petros Estate & Retirement Planning, where she has designed and implemented innovate estate-planning solutions for clients and their families. She also is founder and president of Woman’s Worth® (www.womans-worth.com), which specializes in the unique needs facing women as they plan for their retirement.
Ridgewood NJ, One bit of conventional wisdom has it that to achieve success people must take a nose-to-grindstone, burn-the-midnight-oil approach.
Personal happiness is an afterthought – if it’s a thought at all.
But that’s the wrong way to look at things, says Scott MacDonald, a seasoned CEO and author of Saving Investa: How An Ex-Factory Worker Helped Save One of Australia’s Iconic Companies (www.AuthorScottMacDnald.com).
“Hard work absolutely is important, but I’ve met plenty of people who worked hard and never made much money or achieved satisfactory career objectives,” he says. “Working hard is just one part of the equation for success. You also need to be organized, plan, work smart and choose to focus your effort where there’s reward.”
From his decades of experience, MacDonald says he learned numerous lessons that helped him achieve both career success and personal happiness. Here are just five of those lessons:
• Don’t expect anyone to give you anything. In grade school and junior high, MacDonald earned money by doing yard work for neighbors, handling a paper route and washing dishes at his junior high school. As a teenager, he bagged groceries, stocked shelves in a pharmacy and worked in a fiberglass factory. “If you want something, work for it,” MacDonald says. “You will appreciate it more and not be indebted to anyone.” • You make your own luck. Former University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal was fond of saying, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” MacDonald agrees. “Nothing in my life that I can think of has been the result of luck,” he says. • Losers have the best excuses. Winners find ways to succeed despite the many roadblocks and unexpected difficulties they encounter. People who are unsuccessful reach for excuses. “Whenever things go wrong, and things always go wrong at some point, look in the mirror for answers,” MacDonald says. “Successful people focus on what they can do to respond to setbacks and don’t waste time playing a blame game or feeling sorry for themselves.” • Players score points, but teams win games. To be successful, any organization must have a culture of teamwork. Individual stars need to be supportive of the team concept, or those individuals should be moved on. MacDonald once fired a top chief financial officer who was good at his job, but didn’t see the necessity of working with colleagues and was dismissive of others’ ideas. “The entire company performed better after he was gone,” MacDonald says. • Life is too short to deal with “jerks.” No matter how important the project, if someone can’t deal with you professionally and ethically, just pass on the deal and move on. “There will be other deals,” MacDonald says. “I may have lost an occasional deal, but overall my companies enjoyed good success and reputation, which led to other and better opportunities.”
Ultimately, people can moan about how unfair the world is, he says, but all that griping won’t get them anywhere.
“There’s no doubt that the competitive work environment places huge pressures on your time and energy,” MacDonald says. “But the quicker you understand that you’re responsible for your own destiny, the happier you’re going to be.”
About Scott MacDonald
Scott MacDonald, a successful CEO with a history of turning around struggling companies, is the author Saving Investa: How An Ex-Factory Worker Helped Save One of Australia’s Iconic Companies (www.AuthorScottMacDonald.com). MacDonald’s decades of corporate experience include serving as a senior consultant for Morgan Stanley, president of New Plan Excel Realty Trust and CEO of Center America Property Trust.
Amid the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the stock, bond, and commodity markets this week, a few ‘rotten’ things began to emerge. With major indices diverging notably, new highs and new lows soaring, and breadth deteriorating, analysts noted the re-awakening of The Hindenburg Omen signal…
As John Hussman previously wrote, when we think of market “internals,” the number of new highs and new lows can contribute useful information. To expand on the vocabulary we use to talk about internals, “leadership” typically refers to the number of stocks achieving new highs and new lows; “breadth” typically refers to the number of stocks advancing versus declining in a given day or week; and “participation” typically refers to the percentage of stocks that are advancing or declining in tandem with the major indices.
The original basis for the Hindenburg signal traces back to the “high-low logic index” that Norm Fosback created in the 1970’s. Jim Miekka introduced the Hindenburg as a daily rather than weekly measure, Kennedy Gammage gave it the ominous name, and Peter Eliades later added several criteria to reduce the noise of one-off signals, requiring additional confirmation that amounts to a requirement that more than one signal must emerge in the context of an advancing market with weakening breadth.
And this week saw renowned technician Tom McClellan declare a Hindenburg Omen had struck…
