It’s a slow day in a small town and
streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody
is living on credit.
A rich tourist drives through town, stops at the
motel, and lays a $100
bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms
upstairs to pick one for the night.
As soon as he walks upstairs, the owner
grabs the bill and runs
next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the
street to retire
his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off
to pay his bill to
his supplier, the Farmer’s Co-op.
The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the
$100 and runs to pay his
debt to the local prostitute, who has also been
facing hard times and has
had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off
her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100
back on the counter so
the rich traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the
stairs, states that
the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100
bill and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned
anything. However, the
whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the
future with a lot more optimism.
And this, ladies
and gentlemen, is how the United States
Government is
conducting business today.
What has Tennessee elected officials done to get the data center business?
The state of Virginia has adopted targeted tax incentives to attract major data center projects to the state, which is already one of the most active data center markets. The incentives are designed to keep Virginia competitive with other states that have passed similar tax incentives to attract data center projects, and positions the commonwealth to benefit from IT investment in the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan.
Last month both houses of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously passed the incentive package, which offers tax breaks on servers and other equipment purchases for either new or existing data centers. The bill was promptly signed into law by Gov. Tim Kaine.
The new measure offers an exemption from the Virginia Retail Sales and Use tax for computer equipment bought or leased between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2020 for use in a data center. The facility must be located in Virginia, generate capital investment of at least $150 million and create at least 50 new jobs that pay one and one half times the prevailing average wage in the locality.
Read more via Virginia Passes Data Center Tax Incentives « Data Center Knowledge.
Vice President Biden says inaccuracies in unemployment predictions shouldn’t undercut the White House’s support of the $787 billion economic revival plan that has not met the expectations of President Obama’s team.
….. Just 10 days before taking office, Obama’s top economic advisers released a report predicting unemployment would remain at 8 percent of below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.
Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment in May rose to 9.4 percent.
Biden said the White House is keenly aware of the gap between the rhetoric used to sell fast passage of the legislation and the reality that has 14.5 million people unemployed.
Read more via Biden Says ‘Everyone Guessed Wrong’ on Unemployment Numbers – Political News – FOXNews.com.
The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death.
Read more via Dead People Being Sent Stimulus Checks – Presidential Politics | Political News – FOXNews.com.
The new-and-improved version of the First-Time Homebuyer Credit offers rookie home buyers (or those who simply haven’t owned a home in the past three years) a chance to get a federal income tax credit of up to $8,000. Thanks to this year’s Stimulus Act, you don’t have to repay the credit like you did with last year’s version.
Even better, the IRS says unmarried individuals can team up on a home purchase and then share the credit. If you’re thinking of going this route, here’s what you need to know to get the best tax-saving results:
Read more via A Not-So-Tricky Split: The Home Buyer Tax Credit at SmartMoney.com.
Grandparents, retirees and struggling seniors have waited months for this.
Tens of millions of Social Security recipients will see their bank accounts jump by $250 starting Thursday, when the government began sending out checks and transferring funds for a one-time boost coming from the stimulus bill passed in February.
The payments are flowing to nearly 55 million seniors and retirees between now and June 4, with a huge batch of checks hitting the mail this week.
Read more via $250 checks going to millions of seniors Thursday – CNN.com.
When Warren Buffett speaks, it’s usually worth paying attention. This time, the Oracle of Omaha is voicing concerns about the ability of some battered local and state governments to pay off their debts. The idea of cities and states facing insolvency is alarming for sure, and Buffett isn’t alone. Moody’s recently assigned a “negative outlook” to the creditworthiness of all the nation’s local governments. The agency has rarely made such a sweeping generalization but said the magnitude of this recession warranted the move. The comments are the latest to have shaken the once-staid world of municipal bond investing.
Traditionally, muni bonds offered lower yields — usually about 20% less — than Treasury bonds, since their income isn’t taxed. But the group was crushed last year, sending prices down and yields up. Now bargain hunters have started to emerge, attracted by yields that are as much as 70 basis points, or 0.7%, more than similar 10-year Treasurys, for example. As a result, the S&P Muni index has climbed 7% this year, compared with the nearly 6% decline in the broader stock market. Read more…
Funds will accelerate cleanups in 28 states, removing hazards from tainted communities
Fifty of the country’s most polluted and hazardous waste sites were selected Wednesday to receive a share of federal stimulus money to continue cleanup operations.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced that $582 million in recently approved economic stimulus money would be used to help clean up the sites in 28 states.
Read more via EPA Selects 50 Polluted Sites for Stimulus Money – ABC News.
Cash-strapped state treasuries could lose tens of millions of dollars in income and corporate tax revenue if states copy the tax breaks in the federal economic stimulus package, officials say.
Most states tie their tax code to the federal government’s to make it easier for individuals and businesses to fill out their tax forms. The $787 billion stimulus package that Congress approved and President Obama signed contains about 10 new tax cuts that state officials will have to decide whether to follow.
Read more via Stimulus tax breaks threaten state revenues.
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