A Cynical Look On Loaning to the Government

California is at it again--raising taxes that is.
Or are they?

What they're really doing is raising their income withholding rate--by an incredible 10%.
"Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less." - Latimes
Which is interesting, because a forced loan without interest seems to be much more of a tax and much less of a loan.
I don't know about you, but when I give out a loan I expect to make a decent rate back on it.
In addition to Californians not getting their money on time, the money withheld will also take a hit from inflation--whatever percentage the dollar is devalued the year that the money is withheld--while the government holds it. This year that percentage is quite a substantial amount.
Because no interest is given during this period, the holdings are indeed a tax. The tax on this sum can can be calculated by taking into account inflation and the potential that the money would have earned if it were actually loaned at interest, or invested elsewhere.(It would have to be something you were actually going to do with the money)
In any event, when California officials mean that they are holding onto the taxpayer money, they really mean that they are "spending it all as fast as they can in a desperate attempt to turn around budget deficits"
Unfortunately, spending your way out of deficits has never worked very well for the United States. It's exactly like trying to fill a hole, by digging at the bottom of the hole. It just doesn't make any sense. The only way California is ever going to fix it's financial problems is by cutting spending--something California has never been very good at.
As it stands, the good news is that the withholdings will probably go away after the state fixes its deficit problem. The bad news is that the state will probably never fix its deficit problem.
The withholdings tax doesn't look like it's going anywhere, and it will probably increase again for Californians in the future.

What am I going to do about it? My job is to complain about things, not to fix them.
I do have one suggestion for Californians though: move to Florida, where companies are allowed to pay employees a little more of what they earn.

Src: Cbs2
Src: Latimes

A Cynical Look On Chores and White House Kids.

In an interview with Barbara Walters, Obama announced that his daughters will do chores in the white house. That is just great for them, maybe they will learn some discipline or values... or something.

How does this help us?
Well, it doesn't.
What would change for America if they let someone else do their chores?
Well, not a heck of a lot.

The headlines on this are all over the internet and the newspapers. But I write not about the chores they will do, how they will do them, or why they will do them. I write because I don't care. I don't give a rats fecal matter that Obama's children make their beds, or that they do their homework. My attention is far better served elsewhere, and so I hate it when I see these kind of headlines over and over just because a bunch of morons that live on a couch watching abc news, like some kind of obsessive World of Warcraft player glued to the computer, think that they hold some kind of special significance.

This is not nearly the first time that the kids in the White House have attracted undue attention, it happens practically every term a kid is in the white house. A good example are the front page headlines over Amy Carter (President Carter's daughter) being late for school one day in the 70's. One, who cares? And two, kids are late for school all the time!

This kind of news getting that much attention is not only insulting to the media, but to all of America. Would the information be there if nobody was interested? Possibly. However, I don't think it would make the mainstream headlines.