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The "fiscal cliff" deal that was designed to save money actually includes $330.3 billion in new spending over the next decade, according to the official estimate the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday afternoon.CBO said the bill contains about $25.1 billion in new cuts, but those are swamped by the new spending on extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and other new refundable tax credits that President Obama fought for.Of those cuts, only $2 billion are scheduled to take effect in 2013.And CBO also warned that some of the cuts Congress is counting are from programs on which CBO never...

You Know How This Ends Right? This Ends Through War. Mac Slavo December 31st, 2012 In 2006, when Americans were flying high on ever-expanding credit and double digit real estate growth, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass came to the conclusion that something was very wrong. He and his investors determined that a massive real estate bubble was forming in sub-prime mortgages. But rather than just making a prediction, they put their money where their mouth was, and took a $4 billion gamble that the real estate market was about to detonate. At the time, many in the industry and within...

Douglas Graham/CQ Roll CallMcCain said he believes the president’s statement “clearly will antagonize members of the House.” With both sides on the cusp of a fiscal cliff deal, President Barack Obama vowed Monday to seek additional revenue next year alongside spending cuts. In the process, he also angered several GOP senators who said he demeaned their efforts to reach a deal.Obama said that a year-end deal to avert tax hikes for the middle class “is within sight, but it’s not done.” The emerging deal, which sources have pegged at around $600 billion in new revenue, would include permanent extensions of...

He had to break it to find out what was in it.

As it stands, I pay thousands upon thousands in federal income taxes...

President Obama is trying to push through legislation to keep broader middle class income taxes from rising by Monday night. But they may still have to pay at least 2% more in payroll taxes. That's because the government had temporarily lowered the payroll tax rate in 2011 to 4.2% from 6.2%, in an effort to keep more cash in the pockets of Americans and provide a boost to the economy. The tax cut, which applies on the first $113,700 in annual earnings, is expiring in December. Come 2013, most of the country's 160 million workers will see smaller paychecks. No...

Why Inflation is the Economy's Hidden Iceberg in 2013 Economics / InflationDec 31, 2012 - 06:35 AM By: Money Morning Martin Hutchinson writes: Even though Ben Bernanke's Fed has kept interest rates close to zero, inflation hasn't been a big problem since the 2008 financial crisis. Despite what many observers have expected inflation has remained quite tame. However in 2013, that may be about to change. One factor that might cause a surge in inflation is the fiscal cliff. That's because Bernanke is already buying $1 trillion of Treasury and housing agency bonds each year ($85 billion per month) against...

Preppers, Patriots and Pirates Politics / US PoliticsDec 31, 2012 - 08:21 AM By: BATR Now that the prospects of a second Obama administration are hitting home, the pace of a rapid deterioration are confronting all thinking Americans. The radical transformation that is centrally planned for the economy and authoritarianism administrated by the statists that are part of the most tyrannical regime in memory, is taking place before our eyes. Falling off the cliff is more like descending into the abyss of martial law contrived to eliminate the last remnants of independent citizens. Advocating for civil liberties is treated as...

For most of its existence, Bakersfield has inhabited that awkward in-between place. Not as sophisticated as Los Angeles, just over the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, not as wealthy as its longtime economic rival Fresno, equidistant to the north. Cheap land, affordable housing, proximity to Los Angeles, a location that's within a three-hour drive of 90 percent of the state's population, and a planning department that doesn't throw up roadblocks are driving the region's economic revolution, business leaders say.

Everywhere from FoxNews.com to CNBC.com, I suddenly see commentators warning of pending doom, economic collapse, and a new Great Depression. Welcome to my club. Perhaps America's politicians and economists should have paid attention to an entrepreneur and small businessman that has been warning of economic collapse and a new Great Depression publicly for over two years. More importantly, none of the current commentaries mention the "why's" of this slow motion economic collapse...beyond the obvious -- mountains of deficit and debt. None of them mention the dysfunctional structure of the current U.S. economy and the massive changes in the work ethic...

(Reuters) - France's Constitutional Council on Saturday rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013 in a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit.

16 Things About 2013 That Are Really Going To Stink By Michael Snyder December 27th, 2012 The beginning of the year has traditionally been a time of optimism when we all look forward to the exciting things that are going to happen over the next 12 months. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of things about 2013 that we already know are going to stink. Taxes are going to go up, good paying jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be destroyed, the number of Americans living in poverty will continue to soar, our infrastructure...

MICHAEL PENTO: It Would Be More Surprising If Gold Didn't Go To $10,000 Sam RoDec. 29, 2012, 7:12 AM Michael Pento The world's central banks have gold bulls on high alert thanks to unprecedented, ultra-easy monetary policy. Eric King of King World News asked Michael Pento if this means gold $10,000 is coming. Here's Pento's response: “Absolutely. I know it sounds ridiculous, but don’t forget that back in the 1930s it was (around) $21 an ounce. No one would ever have believed that 80 years later we would have gold trading anywhere near $1,900 an ounce, but that’s what happened....

Originally posted at The Coming Depression blog,The beginning of the year has traditionally been a time of optimism when we all look forward to the exciting things that are going to happen over the next 12 months. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of things about 2013 that we already know are going to stink. Taxes are going to go up, good paying jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be destroyed, the number of Americans living in poverty will continue to soar, our infrastructure will continue to decay, global food supplies will likely...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The end game at hand, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders made a final stab at compromise Friday to prevent a toxic blend of middle-class tax increases and spending cuts from taking effect at the turn of the new year. Success was far from guaranteed in an atmosphere of political mistrust — even on a slimmed-down deal that postponed hard decisions about spending cuts into 2013, and pessimism vied with optimism in a Capitol where lawmakers grumbled about the likelihood of spending the new year holiday in the Capitol.

So, Is This The End Of ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan? Sam RoDec. 28, 2012, 2:42 PMWall Street analysts put their reputations at risk everytime they publish a forecast. And that risk rises exponentially when those forecasts go against the consensus. Few analysts have been more aggressive about their non-consensus calls than ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan, who predicted in September 30, 2011 that the U.S. was heading for a recession and that it was "inescapable." Many have criticized him for being ambiguous with his timeline for that call. But during a November 29 appearance on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene, Achuthan made it...

Video Lecture. Might as well have been given yesterday.

Employment Collapsed In Today's Chicago PMI Report, But It's A Mistake To Freak Out About It Sam RoDecember 28, 2012 Earlier this morning, we learned that the Chicago PMI climbed to 51.6 in December. This was slightly ahead of economists expectations. The gain was largely driven by a jump in the new orders sub-index. However, the employment index collapsed to a three-year low. Should we be worried? TD Securities' Eric Green thinks we should take a deep breath and think about what happened. "That may look worse than it really is, however," he writes. "The drop in employment reflects the...

The Mississippi River's Water Levels Are Dropping, And Could Shut Down Trade Next Week Jim Salter, Associated PressDecember 28, 2012Wikimedia Commons ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Mississippi River level is dropping again and barge industry trade groups warned Thursday that river commerce could essentially come to a halt as early as next week in an area south of St. Louis. Mike Petersen of the Army Corps of Engineers said ice on the northern Mississippi River is reducing the flow more than expected at the middle part of the river that is already at a low-water point unseen in decades, the...

Here's What's Behind The Collapse Of The Japanese Yen — The Biggest Economic Story In The World Joe WeisenthalDec. 27, 2012, 7:26 PM Earlier we joked that lost in all of the Fiscal Cliff shuffle was the fact that the yen has been getting clobbered. SocGen's FX guru Kit Juckes jokingly responded that far from getting "lost" the yen carnage was actually the only game in town. Indeed this is really the huge story in global markets right now. In addition to being a major shift in one of the world's biggest and strongest currencies, it affects all sorts of...