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Obama laid down a new gauntlet today.  Now he refuses to negotiate over raising the debt limit.  "I will not play that game,"  he says.  What Obama is saying is that he has no intention of making any concessions to reducing the national debt or the ongoing deficits.  The road to bankruptcy is not going to be blocked by this President. The only thing the President will consider is raising taxes on everyone above $ 250,000 in income.  If he succeeds, revenues will be lower and the deficit will expand; economic growth will turn negative and the US will stagnate further.  That's the President's plan.  Just remember that when England did exactly this three years ago -- raising taxes on everyone making over $ 1 million, the number of tax payers filing returns over $ 1 million income dropped 60 percent and revenues from this income group collapsed.  That's where the tax on "millionaires and billionaires" is headed. Either Obama is woefully ignorant ...

No doubt, many investors prefer only invest in dividend-based counters. Malaysia is famous and already been recognized as one of the hottest spot for those looking for high dividend yields counters. But, things may changed. Why? First, how do we calculate dividend yields? It's dividing the one year dividends declared by share price. Normally, yield which is higher than 5% was considered attractive . Just when everyone looking to hide their money from risks, yet aiming for higher returns than putting into fixed deposit (3% p.a), dividend counters seems to be their preferred selection. Should we follow the "professionals"? Yet, many investors just follow the winds (fund managers, analysts, consultants...) to invest based on the past 6 months, 1 year or 2 years track records. Yes. It's proven track records. But, where we are heading to is more important, right? If you read the newspaper which published out-dated yields data , good luck. It's was based on last year d...

Recently, we’ve heard a lot about companies holding excess cash on their balance sheets. Many claim that if these companies invested some of the cash they’re been hoarding, the US economy would get the boost it needs. Ironically, even though American companies currently hold near record amounts of cash, many of them are “cash poor” in the US. This is because a majority of their cash is trapped in foreign countries, mainly in Europe and Asia. The list of companies with cash aboard is extensive and includes some major US companies such as Johnson & Johnson, GE, Whirlpool and Microsoft. So why can’t they just bring the cash back to the US? This mainly has to do with the fact that these companies would incur a 35 percent tax rate on corporate profits from the cash they bring back. A recent WSJ article mentioned the company Emerson Electric, which holds almost $2 billion in cash abroad, has only been able to bring back $500 million to the US. This meant that the company had ...

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what happens to taxes.  There is no tax policy that can catch up with the entitlement promises.  The only reason that taxes matter is the impact on economic growth and the answer to that is pretty simple. Higher taxes mean lower economic growth. We are headed for bankruptcy as a nation, regardless of what happens to the Bush tax cuts.  Double all current tax rates and revenues and even that doesn't help.  We have a $ 66 Trillion unfunded medicare deficit.  A trillion here or a trillion there in tax revenues is completely irrelectant. So, why is the media so focused upon whether or not Republicans will agree to an increase in tax rates.  Whether or not the Republicans cave only matters for economic growth.  It is completely irrelevant to the issue of looming fiscal bankruptcy.  If Republicans cave, we get lower economic growth, but no tax rate policy solves the nation's future bankruptcy. The Obama fo...

Taxing millionaires and billionaires is a slogan.  There is an interesting story in today's WSJ about the results of England's recent experience of taxing the rich.  They raised the tax on taxpayers making more than $ 1 million annually from 40 % to 50 %.  Guess what?  Tax revenues collapsed, while the number of tax returns reporting $ 1 million or more in income fell by more than 50 %?  That is a preview of our future if Obama gets his way.  Obama's soak the rich scheme will lead to lower revenues, a higher deficit, and a weakening economy. Meanwhile, the entitlements march on. National debt, now at $ 16.3 Trillion will be $ 22 Trillion by the time Obama leaves office, if we are lucky.  It could be $ 25 Trillion if the economy falls apart because of Obama policies.  Taxing rich folks brings in $.08 Trillion per year, assuming you believe Obama's assumptions.  That means the national debt will be only $ 24 Trillion by 2016, not $ 25 Tril...

            While the news broke surrounding Hewlett Packard’s sudden write-down of its November 2011 acquisition of Autonomy nearly two weeks ago, developments continue to plague H-P as it settles this mammoth blunder.               On November 20 th , H-P’s stock went tumbling 12% as the company announced a massive $8.8B write-down, primarily tied to its acquisition of Autonomy.   H-P directly accused Autonomy of "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations".   The Founder of Autonomy, Michael Lynch, has openly rejected these accusations, and has gone as far as sending an open letter to H-P’s board asking for an explanation of what these supposed “accounting improprieties” are.                   Unfortunately, the write-down of A...

Whatever happens to the economy in 2013 belongs to the President.  There is no way out of that regardless of how the media attempts to blame the President's critics.   Congress has never been blamed for a recession.  Hoover was in the first year of his first term as President when the Great Depression began.  While Hoover had nothing whatsoever to do with causing the Great Depression, his name will forever be associated, in a negative way, with the Great Depression. One suspects that 2013 is going to be a disaster quite independent of what resolution there may or may not be to the fiscal cliff.  But, the President's proposals have the potential to make the situation far, far worse.  One virtue of going over the cliff is that everyone will get a small taste of our future.  Sooner or later the national debt, now over $ 16.3 Trillion and growing by ten percent per year, will simply overwhelm any realistic effort to bring it under control.  Socia...