Vast Write Wing - July 2010

[lwoolley]

Hi Lynn,
Terry and I heard the conversation on your show this morning re the border situation in Laredo... I tried to find some news on that yesterday, and all I could find were blogs.... no legitimate news source is talking about it.. What your guest said about knowing one of the ranchers personally was interesting.
I also find it interesting that Governor Perry cancelled his appearance on Greta Van Susteran tonight.... I think he does not want to talk about it. That would be my guess. Hope you are able to talk to the rancher..

Judy

[lwoolley]

Mr. Woolley,

Conflicting reports on the Los Zeta's taking
ranches over. Still some reports coming out
of the area says that that is the truth others
says that is a complete lie. Unable to get any
confirmation from local lawenforcement offices.

GUESS I WAS WRONG.

[lwoolley]

Bill, I think we are in complete agreement.

The difficulty is where to cut the spending. I was just looking at the cash-flows from the federal government. The biggest problem is that we are fighting a multi-front war. If we could do as Clinton did and cut the defense budget by 50% we could conceivably grow our way out of this mess.

By the way, this seems so like the early years of the Reagan administration it is almost frightening. He changed the complete tax code, first in 1982 and then again four years later. The real estate whiplash was a real killer. We went from accelerated depreciation to no tax deduction of any kind for passive investors.

Sorry about my typos. That 25% under Bush should have been 35% and the 40% capital gains should have been 20%.

I am glad that I am not the one in charge of this mess. Factually I have yet to hear anyone with a plan to dig us out. I truly wish there was a Reagan on the side lines coming up with the positive solutions he was speaking about long before anyone considered him seriously for President. I hear plenty of anti-this or anti-that, but we are certainly short of anyone in public who is not just “against.” As long as President Obama has a positive agenda, while we may not agree with him on what he is “for’, and his opponents simply change they are “against Obama” I think our next President will be named Obama.

If you are going to beat a sitting President, you had better have a clear vision of what you will create and be able to communicate it to the public. Simply being against the sitting president’s policies without a clearly articulated positive plan for the future is a sure fire way to get trounced.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Since there is no "th" sound in the German language I suspect that only Leland and I understand "pithy." Beyond that I believe that the future economy in this country is going to prove that the past is not always prologue. By the way, if memory serves I believe that the 39.6% income tax rate happened under Bush 41 and, indeed, contributed mightly to his defeat in 1992. Remember, "No new taxes"? What Bush 41 actually said was that my gnu would not be taxed.........if I had one.
USL

[lwoolley]

Jeff,

There are positive plans out there. They are not going to get air time right now nor should they. The plans will be put forth in their time beginning next year. As for Obama having a positive agenda, his plans are anything but positive. They are against everything this nation has stood for and stands for.

You have not seen "against" until you hear the Democrats come out against the proposed plans over the next two years. They are going to squeel like stuck pigs. Then, the people will get to say whether they are ready for change or are they feeling good about being Europe West.

Our problems are what we have, and they will not be fixed easily nor quickly. It will take careful sustained plans and some pain in all areas to get on "the path". However, there is no nation or economy in the world that has the resilience and ability to come back strong, with the right leadership, than this one. Ronaldus Magnus is gone, but there is an emerging leader being formed in the wings that will come out of the process in the next two years. Obama will be gone; he must be gone.

McCain was a joke. We had better get serious about our candidate next time, otherwise, you will see another decade and more just like the last one, and the investing models will be rewritten because the laws, they are a changin', and not for the better.

Bill

[lwoolley]

Lynn,
Your excoriation of the use of DNA evidence to exonerate innocent people failed to prove that the results or the consequences of the results are spurious. The analysis of DNA by trained specialists has proven to be an extremely reliable method of identification, and you have not proven it to be faulty with your argument that "if the convict in question didn't do it, someone did". Please tell us why you think the use of DNA evidence is not sufficient to exonerate someone convicted of a crime.







Your Loyal Listener,
Patrick in Odessa

[lwoolley]

The 36% and 39.6% rates were enacted in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, enacted by the 103rd US Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It has also been referred to as the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993. Part XIII, which dealt with taxes is called the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1993. It also raised the corporate top tax rate to 35%.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (ORBA-90) raised the top personal income tax rate from 28% to 31% thereby violating President George H.W. Bush’s “No gnu taxes.” pledge. The tax cap on Medicare taxes was also raised from $53,400 to $125,000. It was signed into law by President G.H.W. Bush on Nov. 5, 1990.

President Clinton commented in 1996 that the 1993 tax increase may have gone too far in that it actually decreased revenues to the government. As a result he signed the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 into law on August 5, 1997, reducing the long term capital gains rate to 20% from the 28% initially set in TRA ’86, and lowering the 15% bracket to 10%. That was also the act which exempted from taxation profits on the sale of a personal residence of up to $500,000 for married couples filing jointly and $250,000 for singles. It raised the $600,000 estate tax exemption gradually to $1,000,000 by 2006, among other things.

The TRA ’97 act was the one authored by the new Republican majority in the House, led by Newt Gingrich. It received at the time, full and wholehearted support from Republicans and was hailed as a “reasonable, responsible” level of taxation by Gingrich. It produced a marked and relatively dramatic increase in federal revenue and was credited for at least part of the market run-up and economic boom of the late 1990s. It also contributed rather dramatically to the housing bubble as the requirement to reside in a second or vacation house was only two weeks per year in order to realize the gain on a tax-free basis upon selling the house.

The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 is what we will revert to on January 1st if Congress does nothing. Given the wholehearted support it got across the board in 1997 and its effects in balancing the budget, I think you may be able to see why I am scratching my head at the intense opposition a return to that law is receiving now.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Below you will find a recent missive by John Mauldin. While I do not always agree with his arguments I must admit that he does some of the better thinking of anyone I know who is writing today. As always his missives are long, but considering the nature of his subjects there are no short, simple explanations.

Deflation is the real economic threat at the moment. I, by the way, agree with his assessment that we should hold off on the tax reversion for a year. Unfortunately, all the screaming about the deficit seems to be generating a knee-jerk reaction in Congress that makes passing a bill that “increases the deficit” a very hard thing to do.

If you can, I would like you to remember a year ago when many of the talking heads, led by Glen Beck, were proclaiming runaway inflation by now. Instead, what we have seen for the past several months is the core CPI falling with alarming regularity. Real wages are now starting to decline in tandem. I am not at all sure what rabbit the Fed has to pull out of the hat here, but if this continues as a pattern they will need one.

Deflation left to its own results can easily develop into a self-feeding sinkhole. Historically it has taken a major war with its attendant huge borrowing and spending by governments to blast us out of those holes. When deflation starts its spiral we have a world depression. World depressions generate dictatorships that need to devour their neighbor’s wealth to keep the locals in bread and circuses. When they reach a threatening size, the rest of the local civilization (in this case the world) joins up and fights them. It’s a horrible cycle that has twice reduced the population of Europe by half and so devastated its economy that it took half a century to recover. I quite sincerely pray that we not go that path again. In an era when nuclear weapons are widespread the risks are phenomenal.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Jeff,

Are you ignoring the G.W. Bush tax cuts from 2001? I think that those are the taxes that we are arguing to keep. That is the current plan. We are not under the 1997 tax act rates. I believe that the 2001 rates are lower than the 1997 rates. The 1997 numbers may have been less than those from earlier, but not those we have now.

Bill

[lwoolley]

SOL,
In today's WSJ, Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, both Democrats, have an oped column titled Our Divisive President in which they express surprise and dismay at Obama's level of alienating and ostracizing those who disagree with him. Cadddell and Schoen really should rachet up the volume of fiber in their diet(s). Obama was a known quality and quantity for at least a year before the November '08 election.........and the uninformed and underinformed (you know, useful idiots) voted for him anyway.

There has been a fun and ongoing interchange (off of your airwaves, of course) among a few informed and engaged personages who see past, present, and future US politics and economics through their respective philosophical lenses. Among us are some who see Obama as a disaster and some who see him through a kinder and gentler lense. When fellow-traveling Democrats such as Caddell and Schoen become disillusioned is it finally time to concede and recognize that the re-education camps for us decadent capitalist pigs are not far behind? What is the common thread that attends all of the authoritarians/totalitarians of history? Answer: They gotta have enemies (real or imagined) to consolidate their power. Alexander-The-Great, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad, do-the-math. They are always in a mode of criticizing, demonizing, and criminalizing....... How is Obama different?
USL

[lwoolley]

Lynn,

My long-time girlfriend is an English teacher, and we talk frequently about the youth culture in our area. She has a unique perspective, as she spends most of the day with adolescents, many of whom live below the poverty line, and from her observations I have come to the conclusion that many of the problems in modern American society can be traced directly to poor parenting skills. Selfishness is now passed down just as family Bibles used to be. Seeking government benefits is as much a family value now as honesty and integrity used to be. Accountability is now a negative term instead of an ideal for which someone strives. Dodging blame is a favorite American pastime, though it is not relegated to only the lower classes. Your single father caller today served to prove this point, as he accepted responsibility and was accountable for his children, whereas the mother of his child decided to shirk responsibility and play the system. What do you think needs to be done about this, Lynn? How can we get responsibility back into our society?

Your Loyal Listener,
Patrick in Odessa

[lwoolley]

For whatever it is worth, I have been a Republican for all of my adult life and have actively and financially supported every Republican presidential candidate since I left the Army about 30 years ago. I contributed and sometimes very publically supported each Republican who ran against Chet Edwards to the point that my name was apparently quite familiar to him!

My issue with some Democrats (e.g. Move-on.org) and with much of what I hear from the “Tea-baggers” is the degree of misinformation and sometimes out and out lies that are being published and circulated. I believe in facts and make every attempt to adhere to the Truth whenever it can be determined and if it cannot then clearly define whatever I say or write as opinion or estimate.

That approach has gotten me in quite a lot of trouble recently. On the other hand, my long experience in the field of investment returns has led me to believe that untruth and misinformation is extremely destructive both to the person who accepts it and to the person who originates it.

I, frankly, do not like a lot of things that President Obama is doing. On the other hand, a lot of what he and his administration are doing is about as good as I can imagine in some very difficult circumstances. He is neither a demon nor an angel. I used to have a fair number of self-described “liberals” as friends down in Austin when we lived in Georgetown. What I find amazing is the degree of similarity between their alarmist and commonly misinformed fears about President Bush and his administration and the messages of fear and alarm that are circulating among the more fundamental conservatives today.

There is and was a small nugget of truth in each side’s fear. The US Patriot Act still is one of the most scary laws on the books. If your name gets into one of the Homeland Security databases as “suspect” you are going to be in deep trouble forever. Once it gets in one or their databases it tends to multiply to the others and it becomes in practice impossible to get your name removed. There is and are equally unfair and unjust things popping up today. Both sides seem to be determined to get their “enemies” black-listed somewhere. I just found that the new and improved SEC (at the request of our Texas State Securities Board chairperson, Ms. Crawford) now lists for public view each and every complaint ever submitted on me over the past thirty years, including those that were dismissed “with prejudice” as being groundless after a thorough investigation and hearings. Included in those listed complaints were those that were lodged by competitors under false pretenses.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that while I tend to give a sitting President the benefit of the doubt, I am far from being in the liberal camp, or in any other camp for that matter, and the issue of big-brother is getting personal.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Dear Mr. Woolley: Your segment on public welfare this morning reminded me of a story my brother told me a few years ago. He came across a construction contractor making around $150,000.00 per year who stated that he received food stamps. My brother asked him how he could receive food stamps when he made that high of a salary. The contractor responded; "Because the people at the food stamp office are fool enough to give it to me." As you can see, this story speaks for itself. Yours truly, Blane Monks

[lwoolley]

Jeff,
Be sure that your sense-of-humor software is activated along with your other receptor(s).

"What is SOL?" you ask. I can't believe that this is a legitimate question from one who presumably listens to the Lynn Woolley Show.....however infrequently. This question smells like a set-up for you to slam dunk whoever provides the answer. If, on the other hand, you really don't know what SOL is, then this may confirm some of my earlier suspicions. Perhaps Lynn Woolley hisself will tell you what SOL is, but not moi. Could you be digging too deeply? Breaking the SOL code is as easy and logical as just blue-collar knowing that MTC srands for Missouri Tabernacle Choir and TPWC stands for The Proletariat Will Collapse.

Back in the '70s Lynn and I had bit parts in the movie Deliverance (Remember the two banjo pickers?), but I ain't bitin' on this one even if Lynn does.

Best,
Glenn

[lwoolley]

Glenn,

I was in the Army a long time and am familiar with that term there. Considering that my business has the acronym “TPWC” I was still unaware of the political implications of the name!

I understand FUBAR, SNAFU, etc.

I had no idea you two were movie stars. Deliverance was, and I suppose is, one of my favorite movies of all times.

More importantly, I am familiar with Victor Hugo’s use of the term “merde”.

Jeff