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Volcker: Taxes likely to rise eventually to tame deficit NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday.

Some locker room banter was recently overheard, to the effect that “nothing is made worth a [@#*%&] anymore.” The subject was boxing gloves, which bore an American sounding brand name but which were manufactured in – imagine this – China. We could not find much ground from which to disagree with that assertion. But the next comment got us thinking: “…they own us, anyway!” No, they don’t. They own our debt, and that’s not exactly the same thing has having title. We asserted, “lots of things could happen to that debt. We could stop paying on it. Or, we could...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - If President Barack Obama's plan to ban proprietary trading at some banks was applied in the European Union, it could be problematic for the bloc's universal banks, an EU document obtained by Reuters said. EU finance ministers, following a call from the Netherlands which backs the proposal, will discuss its possible impact on Europe at a meeting on Tuesday but no consensus is expected. The plan, dubbed the "Volcker rule," was drafted by White House adviser and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, stunned global markets last month and is already facing resistance in Congress. EU countries...

Today the market just barely avoided closing under 10,000 - tonight EC will shed some light on WHY the market's crashing - and the reason why this might get out of control and that could cost many people their entire net worth. We'll also talk about the rise of antisemitism in France, and the headlines of the day.

PRESIDENT OBAMA 10 days ago set out one important element in the needed structural reform of the financial system. No one can reasonably contest the need for such reform, in the United States and in other countries as well. We have after all a system that broke down in the most serious crisis in 75 years. The cost has been enormous in terms of unemployment and lost production. The repercussions have been international. Aggressive action by governments and central banks — really unprecedented in both magnitude and scope — has been necessary to revive and maintain market functions. Some of...

Little Timmy Bonaparte testified today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and it looked as if he was going to explode on national television. I must say I am surprised that he decided to come out so aggressively. I was waiting for someone on the panel to ask him if he “ordered the code red”? (If you don’t know what I mean, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopNAI8Pefg I must admit I was amused. Bonaparte scored one on the congressional panelist who told him to speak into the microphone (a standard intimidation tactic) to which he caustically replied “I’m almost eating it”....

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker wrote the House Financial Services Committee earliy this month that they opposed a provision, backed by Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) that would expand the congressional Government Accountability Office’s audits of the Fed. The committee, ignoring the pleas from the two, endorsed the provision Thursday. Greenspan and Volcker, in a letter sent to the committee’s chairman and ranking Republicans, warned that the provision threatened the ability of the Fed to foster price stability independent of political interference.

Many who backed Obama at the time of the financial crisis last Fall, are now, in private, expressing grave misgivings. (snip) I'm told that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers have both complained to senior Wall Street execs that they have almost no say in major policy decisions. Obama economic counselor Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, is barely consulted at all on just about anything -- not even issues involving the banking system, of which he is among the world's leading authorities.(snip)(obama)is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants,...

A handful of high-ranking Obama administration officials this month delivered private briefings at the annual invitation-only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group. The closed meeting of some of the most powerful business , media and political leaders in North America and Western Europe heard from top Obama diplomats James Steinberg and Richard Holbrooke, who detailed the administration’s foreign policy, while economic adviser Paul Volcker, chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, also gave a presentation at the heavily guarded seaside resort in Greece that hosted the event. The Bilderberg group, which takes its...

On Tax Day, Apr. 15, President Obama declared his belief in simplifying the tax code. His Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by Paul Volcker, has been tasked with presenting recommendations by Dec. 4. Is the flat tax coming? No. Simpler code? Yes. Lower tax rates (plural)? Yes. The catch: The improved income tax code will come with a European-style value-added tax. Choke! Politicians love the VAT. First, because the levy applies to every transaction phase and includes services as well as products, it is difficult to avoid. It's no surprise, therefore, that the VAT was invented by the French. Second,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House Wednesday announced a new task force headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to reform the Byzantine US tax code in the hope of recouping billions in lost revenue. White House budget chief Peter Orszag said Volcker and four other top economists will report their recommendations back to President Barack Obama by December 4, and their review will cover three main areas. "One is tax simplification, the second is closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion, and the third is reducing corporate welfare," the director of the Office of Management and Budget told...

A top economic adviser to US President Barack Obama, along with nine former senior officials, is calling on the American leader to launch a dialogue with Hamas, the The Boston Globe reported Saturday. SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World According to the report, Paul A. Volcker and other members of the bipartisan group - including former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski - have sent a letter to Obama urging him to engage Hamas in order to coax the terrorist organization to disarm and join a peaceful Palestinian unity government.

As President Obama rolls out one of the most ambitious agendas in US history, federal agencies are struggling to administer hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of new projects and to enact sweeping policy changes with a mere handful of senior staff members in place... Only about 70 people have been formally nominated to fill the roughly 500 senior posts in the Defense, State, Treasury, and Education departments and dozens of other government agencies, according to White House records. Dozens of nominations are still pending as FBI and White House officials scrub potential nominees' tax returns, financial ties, and former...

This prescience article has never been more relevant than today. I urge to read it all. TIME TO BRING PAUL VOLCKER OUT OF RETIREMENT John Crudele May 4, 2008 SAVE the dollar! Fire Ber nanke! There have been a lot of folks attacking Ben Bernanke lately. Most are steamed that the chairman of the Federal Reserve isn't cutting interest rates fast enough to help the economy, even though he's been slashing borrowing costs since last summer. Oh, those misguided souls! Bernanke's problem is just the opposite - he's proving to be so easily manipulated by Wall Street and anxious politicians...

NEW YORK – "Even the experts don't quite know what's going on." Speaking to a number of those experts Friday, Paul Volcker, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, cited not only the lack of understanding of the global financial meltdown but the "shocking" speed with which it had spread across the world. "One year ago, we would have said things were tough in the United States, but the rest of the world was holding up," Volcker told a conference featuring Nobel laureates, economists and investors at Columbia University in New York. "The rest of the world has not...

Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve Board chairman who is now a member of President Barack Obama's advisory team on the economy, spoke in Toronto recently as part of the Grano Speakers series.His topic, of course, was the extent of the crisis facing the US, and particularly what brought it about. (Solving it is another issue). He is the latest to suggest Canada is in far better shape, and has been far better served by the structure of its banking system, than the US, Europe and other regions."It’s interesting that what I’m arguing for looks more like the Canadian...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

NEW YORK -- A top economic adviser to the incoming Obama administration unveiled a plan today to radically rethink the global financial system, including a host of measures that would dramatically expand government control over banking and investment in the United States. The plan -- which recommends limiting the size of banks, setting guidelines for executive pay and regulating hedge funds -- offers the first hint of the kind of changes to the financial system President-elect Barack Obama might push for in the coming weeks and months. Obama has pledged to present a comprehensive series of changes to prevent a...

A presidentially appointed "car czar" to oversee the restructuring of struggling U.S. automakers could be named as soon as this week if Congress approves an industry bailout, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview aired on Tuesday. Pelosi told NBC's "Today Show" that she favored former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, recently appointed by President-elect Barack Obama as his top adviser on steering the economy out of recession, to oversee restructuring of the industry. Democrats and the White House are negotiating a bailout package of up to $15 billion in loans to rescue the Detroit Three companies....

<p>Fox news ran stories last night based on some of the things we were tracking right here in this post. Here is their on line story.</p> <p>As unfinished as my research is, I feel compelled to release what I've found so far as the story cannot wait any longer.  I am not looking for a scoop on anyone or anything, but at the same time I don't want anyone thinking I made this stuff up after the fact either.</p>