Patrick's Rants

Feeding backyard chickens can be a lot of work.

I’m joining the Tea Party. I’m “Taxed Enough Already”. I’m sick and tired of the government being involved in everything. I’m with Rand Paul. Let’s eliminate the “federal reserve bank”. Interest rates and monetary policy should be up to me.

Let’s get rid of the SEC, I don’t want my taxes paying to prosecute Martha Stewart or Bernie Madoff. I want the government out of regulating the airwaves, I want my kids to see Janet Jackson’s nipple – except that interferes with my government granted right to protect my children from nipple exposure.

Just like Rand Paul, I say cut out the right of the government to dictate who I can have as a customer – if I want to discriminate against Jews and Blacks and Mexicans it’s my private business. I shouldn’t have to serve LTWs if I don’t want to. That’s my hero Rand Paul – except I don’t like the way that guy looks either. His giant bulbous nose on that anorexic Mr. Potato head with steel wool hair is just creepy. I would discriminate against that guy on his crazy looks.

(If you dare, and aren’t squeamish about language then read (more…)

Jake linked to this hysterical email exchange lovingly documented by someone with an obvious sense of humor.

What’s worse, “Obamacare” or GOP/Republican “don’t care”? When Jesus himself said, “you will be judged in heaven by how you treat the weakest among you.” Or maybe they (Repugnicans) don’t believe in God?

When you hear the “families making more than $250,000.00″ as the threshold for potential tax cuts what do you think? Do you think that means that they earn $250,000.00 and then subtract their home mortgage and charitable donations? You would be wrong. You would also be wrong if you thought Joe the Plumber was upset about the potential to gross $250k and have to pay taxes on all of it.

You would be wrong if you believe the argument that taxing those making more than $250k would reduce hiring or small company spending. The truth is that whatever you spend your company funds on – as long as it’s ordinary and necessary – reduces your tax bill. Let me restate that. Any small company owner that says they are holding off on hiring because of the potential for their tax bill to go up – on taxable income (taxable meaning the part that’s left over after paying business expenses) – is disingenuous, a liar, uninformed or perhaps greedy.

Here’s a simple example: company A (a pretty small company) grosses $30,000/month in retail sales. Assuming a markup of 30% approximately $23,000 goes to inventory. Cheap rent might be as low as $500.00 for a smallish shop; utilities maybe another $150. That leaves $6350 in the shop owner’s pocket. Subtract a barely over minimum wage full time employee (assume the owner keeps whatever is left) at around $2,000/mo and business insurance and there’s only $4350 left. I’m not counting a lot of business expenses that the owner could have, but you can see how this business that grosses $360,000 year leaves the owner with $48k/year. Guess which tax bracket this owner is in? If s/he’s married and has a child, next to nothing.

To be left with over $250k taxable income you aren’t talking about most people’s idea of a small business anymore. You aren’t even talking about Congress’ idea of a small business anymore.

Let’s look at Joe the (lying) Plumber’s business. (more…)

Bob Cringely writes how he believes that crappy programming at Bank of America that doesn’t integrate with the crappy programming over at Freddie Mac is to blame for his friend’s inability to modify his mortgage loan. I’m guessing the reason is really more nefarious, the banks don’t really care. Someone else is there to take the hazard away from the bank.

Why do I say this? Because I know someone who has tried for nearly a year to get a modification. The bank has asked weekly for the same information. The person on the other end of the line isn’t really able to help, they are a cog that has to be worked to get to the next cog only to eventually be told that the process has to be started over because – well the bank was slow in processing the paperwork and all of the information is out of date. The person I know gave up when the bank called and informed her that she had “fallen out” of the loan modification program, and “when are you going to make these past due payments?” The response? Come and get the house.

Incompetency, ignorance, malice. Whatever the reason, people around the country are given the run-around and are still losing their homes. These are people that want to stay in their homes. Whether they made mistakes in their original purchase and made assumptions about their ability to pay, they still want to pay the bank. I’m not talking about the outrageous ideas about refinancing in a few years when “the home value goes up because they never go down,” but genuine belief that their income would continue to be sufficient to pay the bank. I say if there is something wrong with the software it’s because it was never intended to actually work, but to delay the point in time when the bank has to list the loan as a bad asset.