The Nation's Financial Condition

[Farfromgeneva]

Complaints about IP theft are somewhat droll. Go to CiteSeer and take a look at the most common names associated with recent scientific and technical papers adjudged relevant by citation.

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/index;jse ... CB2FD2968F

“CiteSeerˣ is a public search engine and digital library for scientific and academic papers, primarily in the fields of computer and information science. CiteSeer is considered as a predecessor of academic search tools such as Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search.”.

The US has been “skimming” the right hand side of the intelligence distribution for the last 70 years (sort of like the British Empire used to). If some of those students leave and take their education and intelligence with them due to the ridiculous immigration and visa policies resultant from 9/11, we have no one but ourselves blame. Other more accommodating nations like Canada have certainly benefitted from this foolishness.

The rage and resentment from the left-hand asymptote jockeys who are left behind in this digital co-option are perfectly predictable.

Out country has the fairest platform for redress and compensation for theft of, or support for, property rights in the world however which is a pretty significant difference though. Imagine trying to go to court in China to correct an illegal taking (by a govt controlled business)?

[CU88]

IMPOTUS o d is the first president since Herbert Hoover to finish his presidency with a NET LOSS of jobs. He has also presided over the largest budget deficit in American history. This is what the GOP stands for. What a disaster for our country!

[Farfromgeneva]

This is a net positive for our country. Funny thing is my business partner actually developed and established the original platform for nCino while partner of his old credit firm and Pierre and Chip stole it because he was (still is way to trusting, difference is even though he’s 20yrs older than me I won’t let him get run over like that ever again)

2020 changed America's startup landscape
Dan Primack
Dan Primack, author of Pro Rata
Illustration of a map of the U.S. with fireworks set to go off from different locations.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Venture capitalists have been historically reluctant to invest in startups based too far from home, thus making it it easier for "good ideas" to get funded in the Bay Area or the Acela corridor than anywhere else. 2020 may have finally changed that dynamic.

Why it matters: This could create a virtuous cycle of economic opportunity in cities and regions that have been largely left out of America's tech boom.

The history: Many venture capitalists used to abide by the so-called "20 minute rule," whereby they wouldn't invest in a company located more than a 20-minute drive away from their home or office.

One Boston-area investor had his own subway spin on it, saying he wouldn't even meet with companies located past a certain subway stop on the MBTA's Red Line.

In many ways, these guidelines made sense. Investing in a startup is often viewed as a hands-on endeavor, particularly if the venture capitalist is going to take a board seat. If a problem arose, they wanted to be present.
Plus there could be major personal life complications from having to attend quarterly board meetings for portfolio companies in eight different cities, plus conducting due diligence for many more potential investments, while also trying to make those dance recitals or Little League games.
This isn't to say that VCs never invested far from home, but such deals often needed to pass a higher threshold.
The new normal: The pandemic forced venture capitalists to attend board meetings via Zoom, and often conduct due diligence that way too. And they learned that, while often missing the intimacy of in-person interaction, their work didn't suffer.

What this means is that a San Francisco-based VC now feels more comfortable investing in a Midwestern or Southeastern U.S. startup, because they aren't also committing to years of road trips.
It also means those non-coastal startups have improved chances of getting audience with a wide group of prospective investors.
Buttressing both of these developments have been several large IPOs in 2020 for VC-backed companies based in areas like Columbus, Ohio (Root Insurance) and coastal North Carolina (nCino).
The bottom line: Almost every U.S. city and state has tried capture some of Silicon Valley's magic, hoping that local talent will create a successful tech company that then births a flywheel for more. It's rarely worked, in part because the entrepreneurs have struggled to raise money.

Going forward, things should be different.

[Farfromgeneva]

Good quick hit in the wsj today on subsidies and over investment in real estate


HEARD ON THE STREET
How to Fix the Housing Bias That Warps Investment Decisions
Overinvestment in property is incentivized by subsidies and favorable treatments in the tax system that governments could withdraw

Tax changes in the U.S. in 2017 reduced the total subsidy from the mortgage-interest deduction by more than half.
PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Mike Bird
Jan. 5, 2021 10:34 am ET
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Overinvestment in real estate is a problem for the economy. A growing body of research suggests that it saps future output by sucking capital away from more productive uses. And housing is a particular culprit.

There are a number of possible ways to solve the problem—none of them easy.

Homeownership bias, meaning the incentive to invest in property rather than other assets, exists in the most of advanced economies. This means less money is invested in things that boost productivity like machinery and new technologies.


When thinking about how housing is taxed, it’s useful to think of ownership and actual use—as in living there—as separate economic categories. Owning a property is the investment side of the equation, but living there is a form of consumption.

If a homeowner rents out their property, that income is taxed. But when they live in it, essentially renting it to themselves, it isn’t. And that is the major advantage to homeownership over other forms of asset ownership: Imputed rents aren’t usually taxed.

Combined with other tax incentives, the effective subsidy can be huge. A 2017 paper estimated that excess consumption of housing services in the euro area—the amount spent on housing, relative to what would likely be the case if it wasn’t encouraged by favorable taxation—is equal to 30% of homeowners’ holdings of financial assets across the entire bloc.

Homeownership as a share of all tenures
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Own outright
Mortgaged
Italy
Korea
France
United Kingdom
Australia
Canada
Germany
United States
0%
20
40
60
80
So finding a way to tax imputed rent, even if it means reaching a very conservative estimate of rental values, could reduce the disparity in treatment between asset classes.

There’s another side to the equation. If an investor wants to buy stocks, they can’t easily borrow many times their income at fixed interest rates to do so. Housing is a different story: In the U.S. the mortgage interest deduction reduces tax bills for borrowers, encouraging even more property investment.

There’s some good news on that front. Tax changes in 2017 reduced the total subsidy of that deduction by more than half. It now reaches fewer wealthy homeowners and could be reduced further.

That is all very well for relatively open markets like the U.S. The challenge in China is far greater. Restricted by capital controls from easily investing abroad, Chinese households have very few good options for parking their savings. Opaque wealth-management products or the often casino-like stock market aren’t real alternatives to property for most people. And many believe the government will always act strongly if property prices really start to fall.


Property income forms a large portion of middle-class wealth in Chinese cities like Beijing.
PHOTO: WU HONG/SHUTTERSTOCK
Governments need to tread very carefully, since property income forms a large portion of middle-class wealth. In some countries, China in particular, the allocation toward housing is overwhelming.

More adventurous suggestions include a tax on the value of land, to encourage more efficient use and to more reasonably share the uplift in values that owners typically receive through luck alone. But even without such big measures, there are many smaller ways to limit the overinvestment in property currently dragging on productivity.


Write to Mike Bird at [email protected]

[Brooklyn]

The economy lost 140,000 jobs in December

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... mber-2020/



The U.S. economy shed 140,000 jobs in December — the first month of loss since the spring, as the recovery makes a U-turn after months of surging infections and delayed Congressional action.

The unemployment rate stayed level at 6.7 percent.

... The data, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning, points to the significant economic challenges facing Biden as he inherits one of the weakest labor markets in years from Trump




Payrolls drop for the first time since April

https://www.yahoo.com/now/december-jobs ... 12779.html




Thank you tRUMP_Stupid.

[CU88]

The economy lost 140,000 jobs in December

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... mber-2020/



The U.S. economy shed 140,000 jobs in December — the first month of loss since the spring, as the recovery makes a U-turn after months of surging infections and delayed Congressional action.

The unemployment rate stayed level at 6.7 percent.

... The data, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning, points to the significant economic challenges facing Biden as he inherits one of the weakest labor markets in years from Trump




Payrolls drop for the first time since April

https://www.yahoo.com/now/december-jobs ... 12779.html




Thank you tRUMP_Stupid.

If IMPOTUS o d had taken COVID half seriously, we would be in a much much better place.

[foreverlax]

The economy lost 140,000 jobs in December

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... mber-2020/



The U.S. economy shed 140,000 jobs in December — the first month of loss since the spring, as the recovery makes a U-turn after months of surging infections and delayed Congressional action.

The unemployment rate stayed level at 6.7 percent.

... The data, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning, points to the significant economic challenges facing Biden as he inherits one of the weakest labor markets in years from Trump




Payrolls drop for the first time since April

https://www.yahoo.com/now/december-jobs ... 12779.html




Thank you tRUMP_Stupid.

If IMPOTUS o d had taken COVID half seriously, we would be in a much much better place.

and yet, he'd be POTUS.

[Farfromgeneva]

Not a big fan of Gensler but Gary made head of SEC

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-is-e ... 23?mod=mhp

He is either a hypocrite (to me, big one) or a publicity/power hungry megalomaniac (possibly also but believe first for sure) bc he (within and as part of goldman) abused their clients and counterparties in derivatives markets for years. Corzine too but he’s also disgraced due to his failed leadership of MF Global, a freaking derivatives broker w 3,200 employees, apparently having learned nothing from stealing all Long Term Capital Managemnts Risk Arbitrgae Trades and then like driving the fund into a govt organized but private bailout in 1998.

I think ultimately, too early to make any determination now, that creating a derivatives clearinghouse will be helpful in derisking markets and the financial participants, of that’s necessarily what we want and also right. Not as obvious as one might think that any derisking is good. But his historical behavior and approach/method is garbage.

Anecdotally, a good friend runs all derivative trading for Truist, his role at SunTrust pre merger and he took a couple of extra traders from BB&T in. Guy made millions pre crisis for BofA (CRT), Wachovia & SocGen as a interest rate trader. Earned it, from IN with that cool bedside manner, went to West Point and then flew an Apache in the first gulf war, came back and got a MBA in Analytical finance in Chicago then went to work. Ironically he interned in grad school in fixed income sales and trading at Goldman his summer between and decided he didn’t like it. Told me it was all about getting his clients to turn over their books as much and frequently as possible. So he left our boutique after 18mo to take the SunTrust seat which made sense around 2013 and last year he was telling me he’s good to retirement in 5-10yrs, now 51. He can’t make too much money, his bosses don’t want even the optics, even if it was just pure as snow business, because of Gensler and what he created. He said he’s expected and will make between $12-$15mm rev/annum which is super high margin little juice overall and makes his $750k or so until he’s down. Doesn’t even want his bosses job. They aren’t even bothering to try to come up with tailored solutions for the CIB clients, just toll nothing simple stuff and checking out. Derisks, but we lose something that could be valuable as well.

[CU88]

If only there had been a way to foresee this coming, and work to prevent it...

New unemployment claims jump to nearly 1 million

By Eli Rosenberg
Jan. 14, 2021 at 8:47 a.m. EST

The number of new unemployment claims filed last week jumped by 181,000 the week before to 965,000, the largest increase since the beginning of the pandemic.

An additional 284,000 claims were filed for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the insurance for gig and self-employed workers.

The number of new claims has come down gradually since the earliest days of the pandemic, but remains at a extremely high level week in and week out.

The total number of continuing people in any of the programs at the end of the year was 18.4 million, although officials have cautioned that the number is inflated by accounting issues and duplicate claims.

The numbers are not entirely unexpected. As the aid package passed by Congress in December kicks in, including a $300 a week unemployment supplement, some economists expected more workers to file claims.

[youthathletics]

No duh....we can't even get employed people back to work.

[Brooklyn]

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years

The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.


https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump


One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt.

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.



more ....



Thank you tRUMP_Stupid.

[runrussellrun]

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years

The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.


https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump


One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt.

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.



more ....



Thank you tRUMP_Stupid.

FOUR YEARS


that is how long it took you pretends to care about the budget/deficit/spending.

With only hours left to go (thankfully), you guys just coming around to the waste now?

That budget don't get to tRumps desk all on its own, taats in Congress get no credit for this?

[Brooklyn]

FOUR YEARS


that is how long it took you pretends to care about the budget/deficit/spending.

With only hours left to go (thankfully), you guys just coming around to the waste now?

That budget don't get to tRumps desk all on its own, taats in Congress get no credit for this?

Phooey. You obviously have been blinded by your allegiance to traitor tRUMP and your cultish devotion to his lies and propaganda as well as those of the Fo卐 network. Had you not been so blinded to the truth you would have seen my posts re foreign tax shelters that your hero protected.

Now that your hero will be gone, I bet your side is going to suddenly get all riled about the rePUKEblican created debt. In fact that's a good bet, indeed.

[runrussellrun]

FOUR YEARS


that is how long it took you pretends to care about the budget/deficit/spending.

With only hours left to go (thankfully), you guys just coming around to the waste now?

That budget don't get to tRumps desk all on its own, taats in Congress get no credit for this?

Phooey. You obviously have been blinded by your allegiance to traitor tRUMP and your cultish devotion to his lies and propaganda as well as those of the Fo卐 network. Had you not been so blinded to the truth you would have seen my posts re foreign tax shelters that your hero protected.

Now that your hero will be gone, I bet your side is going to suddenly get all riled about the rePUKEblican created debt. In fact that's a good bet, indeed.

you use this response often and everywhere. clearly you have it saved.

all good points, by the way.

[runrussellrun]

FOUR YEARS


that is how long it took you pretends to care about the budget/deficit/spending.

With only hours left to go (thankfully), you guys just coming around to the waste now?

That budget don't get to tRumps desk all on its own, taats in Congress get no credit for this?

Phooey. You obviously have been blinded by your allegiance to traitor tRUMP and your cultish devotion to his lies and propaganda as well as those of the Fo卐 network. Had you not been so blinded to the truth you would have seen my posts re foreign tax shelters that your hero protected.

Now that your hero will be gone, I bet your side is going to suddenly get all riled about the rePUKEblican created debt. In fact that's a good bet, indeed.

Instead of asking, I just dug for myself. "shelter" "tax" "brooklyn" in the forum search function

Can not find ONE post, from you, about foreign tax shelters. Obama closed those anyway, so how can Trump protect things that are no longer there.

Oh, right, it IS because we are racists that we don't like the Dems policies.

So, sorry, I believe you are incorrect . What tax shelters? POTUSA Obama eliminated them.

[Brooklyn]

Instead of asking, I just dug for myself. "shelter" "tax" "brooklyn" in the forum search function

Can not find ONE post, from you, about foreign tax shelters. Obama closed those anyway, so how can Trump protect things that are no longer there.

Oh, right, it IS because we are racists that we don't like the Dems policies.

So, sorry, I believe you are incorrect . What tax shelters? POTUSA Obama eliminated them.

If they have not been deleted, you will find them I'm sure.

As for Obama he tried to eliminate those foreign tax shelters as well but was thwarted by CONgressional rePUKEblicans.

[Farfromgeneva]

It’s pretty evident if you do the keyword search for tax and author Brooklyn he’s been consistent on this. See numerous posts that don’t use the term “shelter” but speak to the spirit of having a desire for at least tax parity if not inverting the existing system.

Search problem not the poster lying. Just have to put more effort in than hoping a rifle shot target search will hit on the exact phrase of nomenclature.

[runrussellrun]

Instead of asking, I just dug for myself. "shelter" "tax" "brooklyn" in the forum search function

Can not find ONE post, from you, about foreign tax shelters. Obama closed those anyway, so how can Trump protect things that are no longer there.

Oh, right, it IS because we are racists that we don't like the Dems policies.

So, sorry, I believe you are incorrect . What tax shelters? POTUSA Obama eliminated them.

If they have not been deleted, you will find them I'm sure.

As for Obama he tried to eliminate those foreign tax shelters as well but was thwarted by CONgressional rePUKEblicans.

Tried, as in he vetoed it?

nah.......Obama etched the taats reality in stone.

I mean, seriously, less than 4 years off the job and the guy owns $25 million in real estate alone. You dont' find that odd?

How about his cry for media thought police control, I warned you folks about for years and years. The "shut down" narrative.........still NOT seeing it? Biden creating a Ministry of Truth........

[Brooklyn]

It’s pretty evident if you do the keyword search for tax and author Brooklyn he’s been consistent on this. See numerous posts that don’t use the term “shelter” but speak to the spirit of having a desire for at least tax parity if not inverting the existing system.

Search problem not the poster lying. Just have to put more effort in than hoping a rifle shot target search will hit on the exact phrase of nomenclature.

RRR claims that he has not seen any previous reference to tax shelters from me. I clicked on search and found this instantly:


search.php?keywords=overseas+tax+shelters&fid%5B0%5D=66




IN LP forum we had innumerable threads on Obama with delusional right wingers constantly claiming he was needlessly raising the nation's debt. A debt that could have been closed immediately by ending those tax shelters - a solution denied by the right wing in Congress. Recall that I have also made numerous references to my past years as a former IRS agent and tax accountant. 20 years in the tax field makes me well informed and qualified to discuss the subject.

[runrussellrun]

It’s pretty evident if you do the keyword search for tax and author Brooklyn he’s been consistent on this. See numerous posts that don’t use the term “shelter” but speak to the spirit of having a desire for at least tax parity if not inverting the existing system.

Search problem not the poster lying. Just have to put more effort in than hoping a rifle shot target search will hit on the exact phrase of nomenclature.

RRR claims that he has not seen any previous reference to tax shelters from me. I clicked on search and found this instantly:


search.php?keywords=overseas+tax+shelters&fid%5B0%5D=66




IN LP forum we had innumerable threads on Obama with delusional right wingers constantly claiming he was needlessly raising the nation's debt. A debt that could have been closed immediately by ending those tax shelters - a solution denied by the right wing in Congress. Recall that I have also made numerous references to my past years as a former IRS agent and tax accountant. 20 years in the tax field makes me well informed and qualified to discuss the subject.

Thank you for providing evidence of such.

But, come on, 4 posts, from 4 completely different threads....is hardly a discussion. That is one "tax shelter" post for every thousand, by you.

As a former IRS agent, would it raise any "flags" if someones income increased 10-15 times in a span of 4 years?

Either way, not much of a hot topic on this website, afterall, eh