Why We're Headed For A Collapse in [Market-Ticker]

Why We're Headed For A Collapse in [Market-Ticker]

Pay attention folks....

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they’re against an increase in the gasoline tax.

Got it? Must have this:

Over in Britain an attempt to play a game called "reality" has led to violence:

LONDON — Britain’s coalition government survived the most serious challenge yet to its austerity plans on Thursday when Parliament narrowly approved a sharp increase in college fees. But violent student protests in central London, including an attack on a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, to the theater, provided a stark measure of growing public resistance.

That the word "survived" had to be used in that paragraph is a stark reminder of just how close things are to not surviving "as currently constituted."

Here's the problem with the American perspective (and that in Britain, for that matter): There is no means by which playing "tax the rich" can close the gap.

Here, again, is the budget picture in terms of deficits in dollars:

So let's assume we don't pass the tax cuts for the "rich." Ok, that's $70 billion a year. The gap between revenue and spending is over $1,600 billion.

In other words "soak the rich" gets you 4.4% of the problem.

See original work for more on this and other stories.