They say they're auctioning notes valued at 32 billion.. does anyone know what this kind of thing actually sells for?

We should vote for fiscally responsible Republicans again. That will solve this problem.

but..but..the GDP!!!

shell game

What would happen if all of america, including the corporations, honestly paid their taxes each year?

I'm sure its to buy new uniforms for their basketball team

I'm just glad gays aren't getting married. *phew*

Just clean up medicare/medicade corruption/fraud and you'll have it. Not to mention the thousands of Pork barrel projects congress passes that amounts to hundreds of millions in waste.

FeeltheIllinoise: What would happen if all of america, including the corporations, honestly paid their taxes each year?

I got an even better idea.

How about not farking starting wars all over the farking globe? Huh? Maybe my goddamn money won't end up being siphoned off to pay compensation for some dickhead's lack of brains.

/Corporations actually paying taxes would be nice, too.

You can thank President Stoopid for piddling away the Treasury in his failed Iraq experiment.

Not to mention the thousands of Pork barrel projects congress passes that amounts to hundreds of millions tens of billions in waste.

FTFY

I know lets hold a dog parade! We dress up all our dogs in little outfits, and parade them down the street. It'll be so adorable! we could sell tickets to our moms and dads.

/Maybe give Kyle AIDS, huh? Lookin' a little better now.

Great Caesar's Toast I've been corrected.. Thanks

For anyone who's in favor of raising taxes, how much would you raise them on the average person. Wealthy people always seem hard to tax due to our system, but they can't possibly share all the burden. So, what would you raise the tax levels to?

Alacritous: They say they're auctioning notes valued at 32 billion.. does anyone know what this kind of thing actually sells for?

Results of the last 3-year note auction.

Those sucky-low interest rates do not tell the whole story. The yield is a big factor, too, plus people buy & sell T Bills and Notes. I am a little vague about the yield thing, which is 1 of the 2 reasons I don't buy Treasuries - the other being I don't have the money.

jcaustin: Results of the last 3-year note auction.

Thanks, but I'm having trouble making sense of that.. It looks like they sold for less than half of their face value.. but I could be reading it wrong.

Can't they just use I Owe U's? They are just as good as cash.

Impeachment is a blanket solution.

bbphotova: shell game

Yea, that pretty much defines government in two words. Almost all the money supplied by people buying bonds gets immediately sent out to other people in the form of SS, Medicare, and Unemployment checks.

Exxon could cover it with this quarter's profts, thereby proving that they're good Americans.

The difference between the selling price and face value is the interest. So if they sell for low prices, the government has to pay more interest to the investor. So when they sell for say, 3.8% yield, that's related to the percentage below face value that they sold for (per year until maturity). I think. I'm no expert on them either, but I've bought some T-bills before.

muninsfire

Corporations paying taxes will only work if you also put price controls on the products and prevent companies from laying off employees. For instance if you put a fast food tax on burgers of 10 cents each, McDonalds will simply charge an extra 10 cents per burger, reduce the size of the burger, or lay off employees. The CEO will still make the same and try to keep the stock price up. If the stock price lowers then millions of investors will suffer along with the above.

Corporations don't pay taxes, the people who use and buy their services pay the tax in the end.

So it looks like half the money we put up for auction doesn't get any bids! hmmm, weird, who wouldn't want us greenbacks!!!



Alacritous: They say they're auctioning notes valued at 32 billion.. does anyone know what this kind of thing actually sells for?

Results of the last 3-year note auction.

This pleases me so much I wanna offer free abortions to 13 year old orphaned girls.

PeopleFirst: Corporations paying taxes will only work if you also put price controls on the products and prevent companies from laying off employees.

Not talking about extra taxes.

Talking about the taxes they already owe, but don't pay.

I'm fully aware of the economic implications of said policy, and am of the opinion that the current corporate economy is not a self-sustaining one, in the end...but I'm also aware that I'm pissed off as hell today and perhaps not being as reasonable as I ought.


Still, one of the first rules of economics is that if you can't afford to live on what you have, then you need to cut back on your spending.

The President has requested an appropriation of $65.3 billion for this department to fight and win the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. This supplemental request includes priorities such as:

* Paying for ongoing deployments and operations by U.S. forces in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters ($34.7 billion);

Thats from the DoD site... wonder if there is any correlation between the $32 billion required and the 'off budget' / 'supplementary' request of $34 billion...

Thank goodness they are working on balancing the 'pubished' budget.... :/

The reason that "the budget" is closer to balanced, is because they're not including a lot of appropriations in the main budget.. like this one. looks good on paper doesn't it?

However, the improvement is expected to be temporary. Treasury is projecting that the government will need to borrow a record $175 billion in the first three months of 2007 as the federal budget deficit resumes an upward climb.

This is why you should not vote for an incumbant congressman. Additionally you should give them a cockpunch once they are voted out.

I smell a BAKE SALE!!

Alacritous: They say they're auctioning notes valued at 32 billion.. does anyone know what this kind of thing actually sells for?

I've only ever bought the shorter-term T bills (1, 3, or 6 months), and those have been going for an (annualized) interest rate of around 5%. They're sold at a discount, so you'd pay around $975 for a 6-month bill, then at the end of that 6 months they give you $1000 back.

The interest rate (ok it's not really called "interest rate", but you get the idea) is what's being auctioned. The government says they want to issue some amount of money worth of bills, say $25 billion. Companies/organizations/countries put in bids for a given dollar amount at a given interest rate. So for example a company will say "I'll buy $10 million worth at 4.75%". The government then goes up from the lowest interest rate, "accepting" bids until they have gotten to the dollar amount of bills they're offering. That's what the tendered/accepted is - tendered is the amount of bids they received, accepted is how many they accepted. Hope that makes sense.

Oh, and as an individual, you don't have to deal with the auction stuff. You can buy through treasurydirect.gov, and you just get the highest interest rate that was accepted at the auction (this is what "non-competitive" means on that pdf). Check out TreasuryDirect sometime though - the bills are generally exempt from state income tax. Just buy them yourself, don't go through a mutual fund company or anything like that because they'll just skim off the top.

Just FYI, the 3-year and longer bonds are a bit different than the bills, since the bills just pay you once at the end. Bonds pay you during the period of ownership as well, but like I said, I've never bought the bonds so I can't tell you much about them.

Alacritous: Thanks, but I'm having trouble making sense of that.. It looks like they sold for less than half of their face value.. but I could be reading it wrong.

It's a big confusing if you're thinking of an auction like ebay.

The auction is not on sale price but on rate. Basically everyone bids saying they want X value at Y rate. The treasury accepts them from the lowest rate and moves up until the offered level is reached and everyone gets the rate of the highest accepted bid. Non-competitive bids don't specify a rate but agree to accept whatever the competitively determined rate turns out to be.

So, that tendered verse accepted column is the amount people bid verse amount sold. The amount of money that changed hands is the accepted total.

This is only notes and bonds. Bills work a bit different in they don't pay interest but you bid on sale price verse face value at maturity.

They're the farking treasury. If they're out of money, why don't they just print some more. Why do we even need taxes? Morans.

What?

They're the farking treasury. If they're out of money, why don't they just print some more. Why do we even need taxes? Morans.

Treasury doesn't print money.

Farking borrow and spend Conservatives - Give me my tax and spend Democrats back! I want all of us to pay our way here.

You GOP morons.

Great Caesar's Toast
Treasury doesn't print money.

Yeah, they leave that to the North Koreans.

okay, so when I buy a T-bill at auction, I get back the face value when it matures, but what I pay initially is the face value LESS the "interest rate" over the life of the bill. is that right?

karlandtanya

Exactly right. you have the FRB to issue new notes, why raise taxes when you can just tax people's savings by devaluing their money through inflation?

Bush you magnificent bastard, I read your book!

But but Clinton!

Wait that doesn't work so well....

Ah ha! But but FDR!!!!

Ha Ha! I know tai chi!!1one!

LiberalZombie: Farking borrow and spend Conservatives - Give me my tax and spend Democrats back! I want all of us to pay our way here.

Actually, you'll need your Internet bubble and stock market fraud back. I suppose you can credit that Democrats for that if you really want to.

thanks Gee Dub. you are unequivocally the worst president in the history of the united states and I hope you, rummy, cheney and cunnilingus rice get tried for war crimes. you truly are a disgrace to humanity and I am sad that it has proven to be that much of a waste of our tax dollars so you and your friends could line their pockets.
hope all those dead people that you killed are worth it when you're water skiing in kennebunkport, you slime. not that you trouble your conscience with such trivial matters.

/ Quick tip 'o the cap to the secret service... how you doin ?