If You Can't Print It...Mint It

In yet another sterling example of how out of touch this government is with reality comes this. Minting $1 "gold" coins.

While the "chief" executive of the U.S. is embarking on yet another much needed vacation - after all driving this country out of business takes a lot of work - folks gathered in Fremont, OH to joyously celebrate the handing out of 500 shiny new Rutherford B. Hayes "gold" coins. And, as we all know by now, America loves a hand out.

As minting new coins costs millions of dollars, minting new coins that NOBODY wants and then paying to store these coins certainly seems like a fiscally responsible thing to do in the current economic climate.

Although this program was signed into law into 2005, the continuation seems like nothing but Congressional folly at this point. In fact, Sharky&Sharky would like to know what was the point to begin with? The various commemorative coin programs includes the Girl Scouts as well - but they only got a silver coin from President Owebama - but they got 350,000 of them. Sharky&Sharky wonder what they would have received if a Girl Scout had been president?

Watch Out For These Girl? Scouts

Oh, by the way, the "gold" coins contain: 88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese and 2% nickel. NO gold. Of course, the U.S. can't afford gold anymore.

Warren Buffet...says Stop Coddling the Rich...GFB

Renana here Y'all. That's Tulsa, Oklahoma talk. I did not expect to work this hard in my first week. Are there any kitten labor laws?

Well the famous billionaire, investor, and all around good guy Warren Buffet has had far too many Cherry Cokes. He recently pronounced that mega-rich have been paying to little in taxes "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."


In a recent Op Ed piece in the NYT Warren opines statements such as: 

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The gist of all this is that the personal income tax on the super rich should be increased to be equitable to that on the less rich, implying that the goal is to get everyone to pay their fair share. Of course this is a subjective pursuit and does not address the problem of what the money is being spent on is not giving a return. Items like education, infrastructure, less regulations, energy, continue to be be unfulfilling. Sorry Warren before I turn the post over to the Sharks let me say in closing "shared sacrifice", GFB.

Thanks Renana,

Following up the WSJ article, Would Taxing the Super-Rich Raise Much Revenue? points out that we have a debt problem so large that the rich's money will not make a noticeable dent.

The Patriotic Millionaires, a group advocating the repeal of the Bush tax cuts on tax filers making $1 million or more a year, estimated that their plan would raise $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years. That sounds like a lot.


But only $100 billion of that is projected savings from lower government debt costs. So the tax would actually raise $40 billion to $50 billion a year: equal to about 3% of the annual federal deficit.

This is of course smoke and mirrors; what does this $50B matter to an annual deficit of $1.5T? Sharky&Sharky affirm nothing. Going further what does $50B mean to the unfunded liabilities of $60 to $70 trillion in the decades in the future. Less than nothing.

However all of the above misses the point. The point is maximizing liberty and whenever government gets bigger i.e. gets more money it takes on activities that extends it controls over its citizens. This Warren is the problem. The government should pay its debts and live within its means and not get more money from any of its citizens.

Introducing Renana...Who is Introducing Raton

Hello, my name is Renana, I am a Sand Cat as you can see by outstanding fine features I am first a feline and secondly a female. If you want to see me strut my stuff go to zooborns.

However moving on, the reason I have been brought onto the Sharky&Sharky staff is provide some character, credibility, and definition to Sharky&Sharky GFB (gimme a fucking break). The reaction that you should have toGFB is in sequence observe, shake your head, and conclude people are really fucking stupid and there is nothing that can save some. However there is no reason for you to join them and die along with them.

Enough about me and philosophy. Let me earn the measly scraps that Sharky&Sharky pay me. I want to introduce you to Make My Day Raton. Raton means mouse in Spanish.

Hey! Raton is that a mouse in your pocket or are you just glad to see me.

Now stick with me on this; lets follow the DailyMail version of the story. Raton is a KILLER Bull. He comes to the festival in Valencia with two notches on his horns. Yep you are getting it. Raton has already killed two of your precious human beings and his value lies in killing a few more. You got to love those Hispanics. The gentleman standing on the table is trying to answer Raton's provocative question, "Do you feel lucky?". As the video shows; well you watch:



Renana believes that the gentleman kept mouthing off. Raton has very short fuse, as the next three photos from the Daily Mail demonstrates.

The White Blob on the head of Raton is the man from the table

This is Raton's favorite coup de gras "The Goring"

Raton is inquiring, "Anybody else want a piece of this"

Aren't you speechless? What can you say? What was there not to understand? Raton is called a Killer Bull. He now has 3 notches in his horns. Aren't you feeling helpless? Do you feel your desire for kinship with humanity ebbing? This poor fool was one of yours and all one can say is GFB! Well you can add "RIP you dumb ass".

Tea Party is Our Jersey Wall...Rush you are wrong

For the last several days Sharky&Sharky has listened to the political commentators/pundits such as Rush and Hannity proclaim that the Tea Party should not have approved the last debt ceiling increase. According to them, whatever Republicans voted for debt ceiling increase bill with its debt reduction dictums and panel recommendations are to be interrogated and critized. To Sharky&Sharky it is pointless at this time to repeatedly hashout whether or not the debt ceiling should or should not have been approved, the point is that after this initial skirmish the Tea Party backers should not complain and moan about the booty they did not achieve. They should reconnoiter and determine how to strategize for the next election in order to gain more seats in both Chambers of Congress, thereby increasing their gains the next time. Currently the commentators are like little league coaches who degrade their team for losing in first game of the Williamsburg World Series. These debates will only serve to discourage the team and more people from joining the Tea Party and participating in the on-going policy revolution.

The Tea Party is currently being called terrorists and hostage takers by Democrats. Since the Tea Party has not displayed any turban bombs and the use of hostage is quite a stretch, in that the only item held hostage was a poor-ass repayment plan for a deficit -> debt that we the citizens of the US can not pay.

Sharky&Sharky is saying that the effort and yes, the current rhetoric should not be a critique of what Tea Party did not achieve or the deals that could have been struck or the confusion in the Republican ranks. All new efforts should be applied to developing and deploying strategies to win the next elections which are necessary to continue the management and the reduction of the US debt. If this is not done then we will fall prey to Nobel Prize winners like Paul Krugman

And thanks to that deficit obsession, government, which could and should be supporting the economy in its time of need, has been pulling back.

From this we should infer from Krugman that more debt is good and the another stimulus is the solution to the failing economy. Sharky&Sharky say "of course not". What is the difference between giving houses to people that cannot afford them and giving money to industries that will not be able to repay the loan. In either case financial ruin is inevitable. The government focus for industry should be the removal of regulation and the demand for more innovation (the enemy of unions).

Both Bachman and Romney were against the debt deal.  Let us not waste time with these discussions either. That is history. Their entire effort now as presidential candidates should be to move the debate to debt reduction plans such as the Penny Plan (or getting Dave Ramsey to leave his ministry for a few years such that by 2019 we can proclaim We, the US, are debt Free. This is possible with the Penny Plan. Or they should back Cut, Cap and Balance.

With the US debt being down graded by S&P from AAA to AA+ ( you remember them, they said nothing while the Fannnie, Freddie and Ginnie trailblaze the US debt path from 2009 to 2011)

Who will guide us back to slovency? Maybe Barry's ghetto thinking that debts do not have to be paid... or Krugmann's Nobel prize winning thinking that the government should provide much more in Stimulus? Sharky&Sharky think neither of these will help. By the By China is now issuing demands:

"China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," Xinhua said.

Sharky&Sharky state that step by step process and plodding led by the Tea Party is the way back to slovency. The first step is stop the inward criticism (listen up Rush, Hannity, Bachman, et al.), the second step is build a strategy that gets the US back to solvency in the next 8 to 10 years (take a hard look at the Penny Plan), and finally promote debt repayment strategy and elect people that adhere to and improve the solvency strategy. The Tea Party should become our country's Jersey Wall that leads us back safely to solvency and fiscal responsibility.

Sharky&Sharky©