Free Republic

Tax season opens in 26 days. And here's my big prediction: a lot of taxpayers will be taken by surprise. Despite all of those "no new taxes" type promises, tax bills are expected to edge higher for a number of taxpayers for the 2013 tax year. And 2014 holds even more surprises. Here's a quick look at what to expect:

The Democrat playbook for 2014, we are told, intends to focus on U.S. inequality and to suggest that only redistributive taxation will solve or even alleviate it. Certainly it's possible to reduce inequality through punitive levels of taxation—at the cost of making everybody poorer. I thus thought it worthwhile to disentangle the current causes of U.S. inequality to see how we might alleviate it by raising the incomes of the poor rather than simply depressing those of the rich. With good policies, this could even provide general economic uplift rather than depression, which would happen with redistributive tax. The policy...

Bitcoin technology has the potential to revolutionise the way we buy and sell property, enforce legal documents and even place bets, according to a new report from financial services and investment firm Wedbush Securities. The system of decentralized trust, meaning that there is no central authority, that underpins bitcoin could have applications beyond the payments world that is most commonly associated with the cryptocurrency, write the report’s authors Gil Luria and Aaron Turner. The report reads: “We see the potential for bitcoin technology to digitize and decentralize trust. The implications of eliminating the need for centralized trust may go beyond...

U.S. stocks can’t go straight up forever. And if the end of QE1 and QE2 taught investors anything, the market could suffer a significant correction this year as the Federal Reserve starts dialing back its stimulus. That view comes courtesy of Peter Boockvar, managing director and chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group, who on Thursday predicted the S&P 500 could drop 15% to 20% in 2014 and finish the year between 1550 and 1600. The S&P 500 opened the year down 0.6% at 1837. The index surged 30% last year, its best performance since 1997.

<p>WASHINGTON—All five regulatory agencies put to a vote and approved the Volcker rule on Tuesday, ushering in a new era of tough oversight that drills to the core of Wall Street's profitable markets and trading businesses.</p> <p>The rule will put in place new hurdles for banks that buy and sell securities on behalf of clients, known as market making, and will restrict compensation arrangements that encourage risky trading. The Fed also approved an extension to give banks until July 2015 to comply with the rule, though firms will be expected to make "good faith" efforts to get into compliance earlier.</p>

I have an old, old version of MS Money and love i; it does everything I want it to for keeping track of my investments. But Microsoft stopped making Money a few years back, so that leaves one other big player in the space, Quickens software. However, when I read all of the review on Amazon it appears to be a nightmare for many people, especially those using Windows 8/8.1, which is what I am now using. My version of MS Money barely worked on Vista; several times in fact it would not, making it fitful at best. I am...

We must be really special to have the smartest person in the world in charge; or something. The people in charge of ObamaScare -- and of the economy in general -- are as intelligent and sophisticated as the financial experts illuminated by this video.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g&w=640&h=390] Video link"Our" federally managed financial system resembles ObamaScare, the Obama Maladministration and the insurance companies with which President Obama et al are currently dealing. Here's a more recent analogy from the wonderful world of federally regulated high finance. According to an article at Moonbattery titled Coming Next -- Race Based Car Loans, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has...

**SNIP** That could pose problems for Democrats, who we’re hearing are confident they can muster all 54 votes from their caucus, plus Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Watt’s home-state colleague. But that’s still short of the 60 they need to move Watt’s nomination to a final vote. The stern warning from the powerful conservative group could sap their prospects for finding a few more GOP votes. Meanwhile, the White House is calling for his swift approval. Senior White House officials met with the heads of housing organization Monday, and according to a White House spokeswoman, the message during the meeting was...

Americans working for the government and in the finance industry had the lowest unemployment rates in September, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In both industries the rate was 3.9%. The unemployment rates in agriculture (9.4 percent) and in construction (8.5 percent) were more than twice the unemployment rates in government and finance. …

A French bank apologized after posting a photo on Facebook of a squirrel caught hanging upside down by his testicles on a bird feeder. Caisse d'Epargne shared the photo on Facebook as part of a marketing campaign for a line of insurance. The photo was accompanied by a slogan, "Because accidents don't just happen to others, insurance will also cover you for any temporary injuries." TheLocal.fr said Friday many of the bank's 24,000 Facebook followers thought the account had been hacked. When the bank realized followers' reaction they apologized and took down the photo. "We wanted to make use of...

in The Physics arXiv Bloghttps://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/5e1dd9d1642 The True Size of the Shadow Banking System Revealed (Spoiler: Humongous) The shadow banking system is vastly bigger than regulators had thought, say econophysicists who have developed a powerful new way to measure its hidden impact In most parts of the world, the banking system is closely regulated and monitored by central banks and other government agencies. That’s just as it should be, you might think. But banks have a way round this kind of regulation. For the last decade or so, it has become common practice for banks to do business in ways...

Big Momma Barnhardt has an example of a form letter to send to your HR monkey to request that you can move your money to a company you trust. Trust being a relative term. Who should care? Anyone with a retirement fund but especially folks with all their eggs in one basket. People who have worked at the same company for a while are likely to have all their eggs in one basket. Enron you say?

I know this sounds hysterical to post about a seemingly tin foil conspiracy development but I am prepared to risk some credibility and get it out there so that we can say we weren't completely surprised. First, 120 embassies have been shut down. The rationale is presumably because AQ is planning an attack. Fine, go with that but that's not the real reason I am hearing from credible sources. I'll say in my own defense that I was told by another source last October, a substantial source who nevertheless did not have 100% of my trust, that Israel would attack...

Is the paper gold scam about to be brutally crushed by a crippling shortage of physical gold? If so, what will that do to global financial markets? According to the Reserve Bank of India, “the traded amount of ‘paper linked to gold’ exceeds by far the actual supply of physical gold: the volume on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) OTC market and the major Futures and Options Exchanges was OVER 92 TIMES that of the underlying Physical Market.” In other words, there is a massive amount of paper out there, but very little actual physical gold to back it...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed the books on 2012 with $33.4 million in unallocated cash on hand — down from $167 million the year before — while adding to the mountain of debt piled on Chicago taxpayers, year-end audits show. Last week, Moody’s Investors ordered an unprecedented triple-drop in the city’s bond rating, citing Chicago’s “very large and growing” pension liabilities, “significant” debt service payments, “unrelenting public safety demands” and historic reluctance to raise local taxes that has continued under Emanuel. The 2012 city audits explain why. [Snip] The audits by the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche provide a treasure...

In an ironic twist, the Occupy Wall Street movement, which, two years ago, galvanized resentment against Wall Street and gave birth to the phrase “the 99%,” has given birth to something new: a financial institution. Or, as they call it — the Occupy Money Cooperative. “We launched [the Occupy Money Cooperative] because we felt that the way the for-profit banking industry operates in the U.S., it intrinsically exposes the U.S. economy to risk and makes us vulnerable to the consequences but, above all, fails many millions of Americans who don’t have bank accounts and are denied banking services,” founder and...

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ending a nearly two-year standoff in Congress and putting the new agency on sounder legal footing. Democrats overcame long-held Republican objections to approve Richard Cordray's nomination to head the bureau, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Bureau advocates and consumer law experts said Senate confirmation clears up a number of questions, including Cordray's legal status as the temporary bureau director and the agency's authority to oversee certain financial sectors such as debt collection.

Thirteen big banks colluded to shut out competition from the multi-trillion euro derivatives market, according to an investigation by the European Commission. The EU’s executive arm said that its investigation, which began in 2011, had uncovered anti-competitive practices during the 2008-9 financial crisis. The commission investigation focuses on the credit default swap (CDS) market which allows banks and businesses to hedge against possible losses. However, more controversially, they were used by Goldman Sachs and others to speculate on the probability of a Greek debt crisis in 2010. There are almost 2 million active CDS contracts with a joint notional amount...

Has the Great Financial Crisis Finally Arrived? Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2013 June 23, 2013 - 05:33 AM GMT By: Graham Summers The technical damage from yesterday’s bloodbath was severe. Spain, which lead the “Europe is saved” party from the lows last year has just taken out its trendline. So much for the “crisis is over” proclamations. We’re heading back down in a big way. The S&P 500 has also taken out its trendline. QE Forever is dead and buried. What will hold the market up now? Copper is indicating that the entire post-2009 “recovery” is ending. We’re moving back...

Yahoo Finance used to be the best Finance site on the web but lately, it has had errors so many times. Any alternatives? I tried Google Finance but didnt think it was as easy to customize as Yahoo Finance.