IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers' income

By John Waggoner, USA TODAY

Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.

When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. "It illustrates how severe the recession has been."

For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago.

"These are staggering numbers," Lynch says.

Big revenue losses mean that the U.S. budget deficit may be larger than predicted this year and in future years.

Read entire article :

German debts set to blow 'like a grenade'

Germany's financial regulator BaFin has warned that the toxic debts of the country's banks will blow up "like a grenade" unless they take advantage of the government's bad bank plans to prepare for the next phase of the crisis.
Jochen Sanio, BaFin's president, said the danger is a series of "brutal" downgrades of mortgage securities by the rating agencies, which would eat into the depleted capital reserves of the banks and cause broader stress across the credit system. "We must make the banks immune against the changes in ratings," he said.

The markets will "kill" banks that try to go it alone without state protection, warning that banks have €200bn (£176bn) of bad debts on their books. "We are pretty sure that within a month or two our banks will feel the full force of the sharpest recession ever on their credit portfolios," he said, speaking after the release of BaFin's annual report last week.
Read entire article :


Crisis deals Germany worst blow in 40 years :
By Agence France Presse (AFP) Saturday, May 16, 2009 - Powered by FRANKFURT: The global recession has struck exporting giant Germany the biggest blow since records began 40 years ago, with data on Friday showing a first-quarter output slump of 3.8 percent. The quarter-on-quarter contraction in Europe's biggest economy, accounting for a third of eurozone output, was even steeper than the 2.2-percent fall recorded in the final three months of 2008, the statistics office said.
Read Entire article :

DOLLAR IN DISTRE$$ BUCK PLUNGES ON GLOBAL CREDIT-RATING WORRIES

By PAUL THARP and MARK DeCAMBRE

The greenback tumbled to its lowest level of the year on global fears that Uncle Sam is borrowing too much with credit that's already stretched too thin.

Investors around the world dumped their hoards of dollars in favor of other currencies and under-priced stocks and corporate bonds, as they moved away from the belief that the dollar remained a haven for investors.
Traders pushed the euro and yen past the greenback after Standard & Poor's shocked the world by issuing a negative outlook on the UK's debt rating, which puts that country's AAA rating in jeopardy.

That such a threat now looms over Britain stoked fear among investors that the US could suffer a similar fate.

"We've been spared so far, but markets now are starting to show how worried they are," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

Sources told The Post that part of the pressure on the dollar might be tied to the growing perception that the US can no longer be called upon as the world's rich uncle. Indeed, Uncle Sam's status in the world has suffered a number of knocks as a result of the credit crisis.

"The markets are beginning to anticipate the possibility" of a US credit rating cut, Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of bond giant Pimco, told Bloomberg.

Yesterday, the euro closed up 0.8 percent to $1.3988 after breaking through the $1.40 threshold to reach $1.4051 yesterday morning. It was the weakest performance for the greenback since January.

Meanwhile, the British pound jumped to its highest level in six months, hitting $1.5933 before closing at $1.5933. The Japanese yen advanced to 94.78, vs. 94.31 a day earlier.
Read entire article:

Jesse Ventura at least Obama can read a teleprompter

Jesse Ventura Owned the Ultra Conservative Hannity on FOX , Jesse Ventura said that Obama inherited a mess , 2 wars an economic collapse ...etc

California debates legalizing and taxing Marijuana !!!

California is facing a massive budget shortfall and some are proposing filling the gap with revenues from the state's biggest cash crop: Marijuana. There is increasing debate on legalizing and taxing the drug. Al Jazeera's Rachel Levin reports.