Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Is new 1040 tax form deceptively simple or just deceptive?
By Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle
“The ‘shorter’ 1040 is a fraud, like everything else Trump does,” “They eliminated 50 lines from the old 1040 by moving them to new schedules.”…
"leaving Government holding the bag with food stamps"
@VintageFreak- Not to worry. The Republicans are taking care of that problem by cutting back on the food stamps.
Yeah, mail holds are always a trip. We always deal with the local PO- not on-line- it's only a couple of blocks away from the house. Still, never twice the same results. In our case the problem isn't the actual local PO- it's always at a large sorti…
@davidrmoran- You know very well that Brian is incapable of understanding that a federal government with the power to regulate its own monetary affairs works at a different level and upon significantly different basic economic principles than are re…
Because of inflation and the significant increase in automotive efficiency, road maintenance tax intake in California is well below where it was traditionally for many years. The roads are in some places barely usable, and are rapidly deteriorating …
@LewisBraham- His "generosity" in condescending to help pay for the operation of the country that he lives in. As in "Let somebody else pay for California's highways... why should I have to help?"
• "my income, land, savings and other property belongs to me"
• no, I won't pay enough taxes to balance the budget, so...
• yes, I'll only vote for politicians who won't raise my taxes, but...
• "if you have it within that balanced budget, go for it…
@MikeM- It's all well and good to be "100% invested" but it tells you nothing about an individual's overall exposure if you don't have some idea of their actual cash/cash equivalent position.
Big difference between someone "100% invested" while al…
"Relies on USPS, in which I'm losing faith on a daily basis."
They seem to be doing a pretty decent job here in SF. Perhaps you have a local problem? They might to be short of employees in some areas as I notice a fair amount of "postal career" adv…
@rforno- Interesting relationship concerning Verizon/Yahoo. Since AT&T uses Yahoo for their email service (at least for our AT&T u-verse service account) does that extend the relationship to "AOL/Verizon/Oath/Yahoo/AT&T"? It would seem…
Current Article from The Wall Street Journal:
North Korea Is Rapidly Upgrading Nuclear Site Despite Summit Vow
"The satellite pictures, captured on June 21, nine days after the Singapore summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Kore…
Nothing that we post on any internet application or "service" is in any way private. If some entity wants it badly enough, they will get access to it. Period. Full stop.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Fidelity article referenced by Ted has been substantially re-written from a version which they had posted yesterday. Now, their headline is identical to Ted's. Because I have no way of knowing which version Ted actually saw and c…
And Robert Samuelson weighs in via The Washington Post:
"We’re going to lose this trade war"
"If we are to have a “trade war” with China, it would be best to win it. We should be better off after the fighting. Unfortunately, the chances of this h…
And likely to get much messier before it's over... this from The Wall Street Journal:
As Trade Barriers Go Up, Global Supply Chains Unravel
"The numbers of jobs gained and lost probably end up a wash. The real costs are higher prices and fewer cho…
@DavidMoran
OK, you're right- I (we?) didn't read down to that part. Note that it states that each couple "have a minimum household income of $75,000 or at least $100,000 in investable assets". Well hell, that's your average American "couple" for s…
@hank- What are the odds that Fidelity queried people who already had accounts at Fidelity? As if that would be representative of average "couples". The lack of any information on the survey process is very suggestive. Garbage in, garbage out... to …
It's going to be interesting when their "feeling" that "their financial health is in good to excellent shape" meets reality.
You just know that this was a well-designed survey, right? Thanks Ted, for more worthless garbage.
We subscribed to The Nation for many years, watching it move more and more away from the center.Towards our final years Ferguson and a few others just drove me nuts, so we finally cancelled and replaced it with The Economist.
"Can it simply be the BS around AI is catching up all around?"
@VintageFreak- Funny you should ask,,, I've been wondering exactly the same thing for a while now.
On the other hand, IBM seems to be doing well with their "Summit" operation:
"the United States has regained the lead thanks to a new supercomputer built for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee by IBM in a partnership with Santa Clara’s …
Yes, despite all of the feel-good "aren't we great" propaganda the history of the United States in this area has been highly checkered, to put it mildly.
@VintageFreak- I always believed that if I owed money to anyone then they owned a part of me. So, other than the home mortgage, which was paid off well before due, we never owed money to anyone.
The home mortgage was taken through a very decent SF …
@Anna- your question is a little hard to parse as written.
The tax in question is that sales tax which would be levied if the purchase were made in a physical store location within a particular state. Presumably the person making such a physical p…
"I think what the right is doing here is cutting off their nose to spite their face"
@hank- Does seem that way, yes? As it is now, ICE is closing down some fairly good-sized businesses by arresting and deporting most of their labor. But wait! Aren…
@rono- I'm sorry, but your comments must be disallowed due to their excessive content of truth and common sense. You may choose to appeal, but if you do, you will be jailed until we damn well feel like letting you out.
Sincerely
Jeff Sessions
F…
And then we have another WSJ article from the same edition:
Nikki Haley: ‘It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America’
A United Nations report condemning entrenched poverty in the United States is a “misleading a…
A quick scan of the reader's comments to this article is illuminating. By a huge margin the almost universal response is very cold: "Tough"... "They squandered their lives, it's not my problem"... "They are stupid, don't expect my taxes to help."
A…
