Media Buries Bad News for Obama in Gallup Poll, Retail Sales Numbers

[DCPatriot]

Media Buries Bad News for Obama in Gallup Poll, Retail Sales Numbers
December 13, 2011


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  We got polling data out the wazoo today.  There's a Gallup poll that says the fear of Big Government is near an all-time high.  Sixty-four percent of Americans now say Big Government is the biggest threat to the country since March of 2009.  What happened then?  Since March of 2009 the number has shot up 16% even among Democrats.  March of 2009.  That's just two months into the Obama regime.  Well, no, Porkulus was February.  March is when everybody figured out what had happened.  March is when everybody figured out what the Porkulus really was.  But March is the early days of the regime, and it shot up 16 points even among Democrats.  How is that possible?  Obama's been in the White House since March of 2009.  That's how it's possible, folks.




Also, you know, they've got their charts and graphs as part of the story, and the charts and graphs are even more graphic, they're more indicative of the devastating result here than even the text of Gallup's story.  According to Gallup, America's fear of Big Government has always dwarfed our fear of big business by a huge margin, and now the gap is bigger than ever.  I know, it's conflicting, because we also have polling data which tell us that Obama is personally very liked.  I wonder about that, but nevertheless it's out there.  But now, the gap is bigger than ever, people fearing Big Government over those who fear big business, the gap is bigger than ever.  The Occupy Wall Street protesters are having no effect, or maybe they're having the opposite effect.  But it's still fun to watch all that union Obama campaign money being squandered here because it isn't working.  It's not persuading people that Big Government's the answer.

There's also another Gallup poll, this one with USA Today that says that either Republican front-runner -- Newt, Romney -- would beat Obama in the swing states.  Oddly enough this poll doesn't even show up in the Gallup sight.  You have to go elsewhere to find it.  Gallup hasn't posted it on their site yet.  That information I just shared with you, by the way, is in the 14th paragraph of the USA Today article on their poll.  Either Republican front-runner would beat Obama in the swing states, i.e., the independents, i.e., the moderates.  But you have to read 14 paragraphs in to get there.  That's what we do for you here at the EIB Network.  But they do finally spell it out.  Mitt Romney among registered voters by five points over Obama 43-48, Newt Gingrich by three over Obama 48-45.

So the White House has to be panicking, and my submission is that the White House has been panicking for a long time.  The White House has been panicking, the Democrat Party has been panicking for quite a while.  That's why they're playing all the games with the unemployment numbers.  And, by the way, Snerdley is somewhat depressed.  He sends me a note here today, "Have you seen the retail sales number?"  I said, "Yeah, I've seen a whole bunch of different reports on the retail sales number."  So the one Snerdley gives me is from AP.  "Americans spent more on automobiles, furniture, and clothing at the start of the crucial holiday shopping season, boosting retail sales for a sixth straight month.  Retail sales rose 0.2 percent in November," said the Commerce Department. Okay, fine.  Can I share with you some headlines?  I printed this out at 11:30, so 34 minutes ago: "Retail Sales Rise for a Six-Month.  Inventories Show Growth," USA Today.

NPR, an hour and a half ago: "Retail Sales Rise for Sixth Straight Month."  MSNBC, an hour and a half ago: "Retail Sales Rose Less Than Expected in November."  An hour and a half ago, San Francisco Chronicle: "Retail Sales in US Climbed Less Than Forecast in November."  Wall Street Journal, hour and a half ago: "Retail Sales Post Modest Rise."  Hour and a half ago, French News Agency: "US Retail Sales Weaken for Second Straight Month."  Voice of America blog, an hour and a half ago: "Disappointing US Retail Sales."  ABC News, hour and a half ago: "November Retail Sales up 0.2%."  CNN Money, hour and a half ago: "Shoppers Slow Down."

Well, I've detected a pattern here.  When the news was first reported by Commerce an hour and a half ago, the original take was, "Uh, this ain't so hot."  And then after the original reporting was done, here comes the fix, changing the reporting to make it look like hot news, good news, better than expected, but the original reporting when the numbers first came out an hour and a half ago, no big deal.

Snerdley only saw one story. I, as host, see them all -- and it's typical. Retail sales are nothing to write home about here, even though it is Christmas. You know people are gonna scrimp, scratch, claw around to find something -- even though we had a story (what was it, two weeks ago?) that half the country wasn't gonna be unable to participate in the retail aspect of Christmas simply because the economy was such bad shape. So we've got all this polling data out. In fact, I have more here on the USA Today/Gallup poll. It's the same USA Today/Gallup poll that shows either Republican front-runner, Newt-Romney, doing better than Obama in all the swing states.

It also points out that since 2008, the number of voters who identify themselves as Democrat or-Democrat-leaning in the swing states is down by four points, while the ranks of Republicans have increased by five points. The swing states, by the way, are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin. Those are the swing states, and that's where Newt-Romney is beating Obama no matter where you go, in all of those states. It's where Democrat Party identification is down 4%, Republican Party identification is up -- and then over here is a Marist poll, and the Marist poll says: There is a secret wave of Democrat enthusiasm for 2012 that nobody has seen but us.

They've got a poll out that says that Democrats are chomping at the bit out there to go vote -- they can't wait! -- and nobody knows it but us. But here we have Gallup, USA Today/Gallup. In fact, I'm not through. The same Gallup/USA Today poll found, in the swing states, the number of self-identified Democrats not including those who lien Democrat fell from 35 to 30% since 2008. That's since Obama. The number of independents rose 30 points, 35-42%. So it would appear, ladies and gentlemen, that the conservatism -- and this is the key. The conservatism of the Republican field is not scaring away Democrat crossovers and independents.



It's not, and yet the entire Republican establishment thinking is based on this false notion that conservatism scares independents and forces 'em to run back to the Marxists and socialists. Well, that's what we're up against. We're not just up against a bunch of dull, boring Democrats. We're up against Marxists and socialists, and our geniuses in the Republican establishment -- our geniuses in the Republican consultancy corps -- still operate on this notion that Barry Goldwater is the formative event in terrorism and that every time a conservative nominee is nominated, that's what's gonna happen and the independents and the moderates are gonna run for the hills.  They're gonna run for the tall grass and trying to find the Marxists and socialists and get in bed with them.

END TRANSCRIPT

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[Chieftain]

How many people are out spending the money they would otherwise spend on a monthly mortgage payment while they wait for the bank to foreclose??  Considering there are supposedly some 5 million or more mortgages in some degree of default, that tells me there is more loose cash floating around out there than many people realize. 

My wife works with a woman who is in default on a first and second mortgage and has been for going on 2 years, and my wife says she always has the latest bling, her husband just bought another car and paid cash for it, and occasionally brags about how badly they are getting over on "the system".

[DCPatriot]

How many people are out spending the money they would otherwise spend on a monthly mortgage payment while they wait for the bank to foreclose??  Considering there are supposedly some 5 million or more mortgages in some degree of default, that tells me there is more loose cash floating around out there than many people realize. 

My wife works with a woman who is in default on a first and second mortgage and has been for going on 2 years, and my wife says she always has the latest bling, her husband just bought another car and paid cash for it, and occasionally brags about how badly they are getting over on "the system".

That's a great point.  People are being allowed to remain in their homes for as long as TWO YEARS without making payments before they foreclose and evict.

And....even after that period, they'll offer thousands of $$$ for the keys...in lieu of an eviction.

If a Republican were in office it wouldn't happen...instead we'd get 24/7 video of crying people having their belongings on the curb.

[Oceander]

How many people are out spending the money they would otherwise spend on a monthly mortgage payment while they wait for the bank to foreclose??  Considering there are supposedly some 5 million or more mortgages in some degree of default, that tells me there is more loose cash floating around out there than many people realize. 

My wife works with a woman who is in default on a first and second mortgage and has been for going on 2 years, and my wife says she always has the latest bling, her husband just bought another car and paid cash for it, and occasionally brags about how badly they are getting over on "the system".

I am acquainted with a number of people who are doing just that, including some people who also have gargantuan problems with the IRS.

[Chieftain]

I am acquainted with a number of people who are doing just that, including some people who also have gargantuan problems with the IRS.

My wife also does taxes on the side, and she has had more than one referral that she turned away because of that exact situation.  There are plenty of stupid people out there and lots of them wait until they are in over their head for years before they even attempt to address the problem they created for themselves.

Many people are unaware that when the foreclosure is final, depending on what it was you defaulted on and what State you did it in, the bank can and will send you and the IRS a Form 1099 for the entire amount of the defaulted mortgage, interest and possibly their expenses, and list it all as "ordinary income".  Once the copy of that 1099 hits the IRS files, you are well and truly screwed.  People enjoy that extra cash like a sugar high for a while, but when you suddenly get hit with $200,000 worth of ordinary income all at once in a single tax year, and that you have had nothing withheld or paid anything toward, the tax due alone can be staggering, but the Interest and multiple penalties they impose can be just as bad if not worse, and IRS will hound you beyond the grave if you owe them money. 

Those commercials you see on TV for "Tax Masters" and others, really are cleaning up on filing back taxes for people and by being paid to try and reduce at least the penalties and interest owed for all kinds of reasons, including people who just got a 1099 for the entire value of the mortgage they just shoved up the bank's nether regions....payback is indeed a bitch...

[DCPatriot]

I always thought those firms like Tax Masters etc., are really shell companies for the IRS itself.

They get people to come in from the cold....so to speak.

Think like a Venus Fly-Trap. 

[Oceander]

Tax Masters and the other TV-ad outfits are mostly scam artists; they will typically run up several thousand dollars in fees and then leave a person with, at most, a half-finished 433-A (collection information statement) or a half-negotiated installment payment agreement.  And the baloney about getting people pennies on the dollar settlements for their tax problems is just that, baloney. 

To be sure, there are some cases where the IRS will agree to compromise penalties and interest, and sometimes even the original tax, but those cases are few and far between, and generally it has very little to do with the skill of the representative and everything to do with the facts - good facts sell themselves, bad facts cannot be sold by even the most skilled of negotiators.

Instead, the way that - I believe - most of these outfits get enough facts behind their claims to avoid prosecution is when they get a client who hasn't filed returns in a long time, where the IRS has prepared so-called "substitutes for returns", aka SFRs, and they then get the tax, penalties and interest reduced by the simple expedient of preparing and filing an actual return.  The reason why this works is that when the IRS prepares an SFR, it assumes that you are single, entitled to one personal exemption and the standard deduction, that you had no business deductions (if you received some 1099s), and that you had zero basis in any stocks or securities you sold.  That usually results in the highest possible tax liability, which the IRS then proceeds to assess against you.

This can be particularly acute in the case of someone who does a lot of securities trading.  I know of one guy who was both bad at filing his tax returns and not particularly good at timing the market.  He traded a lot and for one year for which the IRS prepared an SFR his broker had reported gross sales proceeds of something like $15 million.  The IRS saw the 1099s, and within a year after the due date of the guy's return, prepared an SFR and assessed him for something like $5 million in tax, plus a ton of penalties and interest.  Once his actual return was prepared, and the cost bases of the shares he traded reported, he ended up with net capital gain (all short term) of about $20k.  Together with some other income he had, that brought his tax liability down to about $4k.

Now, the shop that did that for him - wrangled him to the ground and forced him to sit still long enough to get his purchase and sales records together and then prepared his tax return for him - could ostensibly claim that, due to their efforts, they got this guy pennies on the dollar for the tax, penalties and interest the IRS originally said he owed; however, in my view that would be stretching it because what got the guy the reduction in tax, penalties and interest wasn't any particular skill of the shop that did the work, it was nothing more than boring old tax return preparation.  BTW, the shop in question has never made that sort of pennies on the dollar claim.

The only really legitimate claims of getting someone pennies on the dollar for taxes come when the taxpayer has absolutely sterling facts behind his case and the equities just cry out for the debt to be compromised.  The best that I know of involved a guy who was originally assessed about $70k of so-called "responsible person" liabilities for sales tax that was not paid by the corporation in which he was a shareholder.  NYS chased this guy for the next 40 years, occasionally levying a few thousand from a bank account here, or garnishing wages there.  The guy ended up being a building super for the rest of his working days (not a shabby career by any means, but not high-paying either). 

By 2011 the guy was 73 years old, retired, and had no income other than social security and a small pension from his building super job.  The guy had also inherited $50k from his father, $30k of which had already been spent fighting with NYS over the unpaid taxes.  Meanwhile the original tax liability of $70k had grown, and grown, and grown, to the point where it was $1.8 million.

The argument that sealed the deal on compromising that $1.8 million for the remaining balance of the inheritance, or $18k, was (a) it would be worse than unseemly for the NYS Tax Department to hound an old man to his death over a tax debt they would never, ever, ever be able to collect on, and (b) the only money they would ever, ever be able to get was the $18k remaining from his inheritance, and they had two choices: they could take the $18k and compromise on the $1.8 million, or they could continue arguing with the guy's tax lawyer and have the rest of that $18k go to pay the lawyer's legal fees.  The manager two levels up from the case agent finally saw the light and accepted the compromise.

Now that truly was pennies on the dollar; however, it was the facts that sealed the deal, not the skills (or lack thereof) of the lawyer representing the guy.