MaxRedline

Now For Some Good News

NEW YORK - U.S. mortgage borrowers may soon be able to refinance at rates even lower than they were on the heels of the country's recession a decade ago, in what industry sources are calling a "once-in-a-lifetime'' chance to slash monthly housing expenses. Rates for standard 30-year mortgages are poised to fall below 3 percent, a level not seen in more than half a century, analysts said.

Don't know about you, but even though I can pay off the existing mortgage right now, I'm going for the re-fi. No need to raid my bank accounts just yet.

 

Portland City Council Srikes Again

In November 2018, the city of Portland voted to pass a ballot initiative called the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) that is basically Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s failed “Green New Deal” in a smaller, more localized package. In a few months, the city will begin finally investing the money they received.

It's a gross receipts tax on businesses, which are now essentially taxed twice one on stuff that they sell (gross receipts) and again on profits. No matter; the businesses won't pay it - their customers will. But it's a model for the nation, which is what counts as far as the erstwhile mayor of Portland is concerned:

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the tax and the use of subsequent funds, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler believes that the PCEF should inspire other large cities and perhaps even the entire United States. “It’s a model for the rest of the nation,” he said with pride. “A beacon and a testament to our community’s belief in doing things a different way.”

And the stupider, the better.

I stopped buying things in Portland years ago because of the mind-numbingly stupid policies the politicians foist on consumers. Things are less expensive in Washington County.

 

Oh, Tannenbaum!

Dig them holes with trowels by golly, fa-la-la-la-la...

Some New Yorkers are coughing up a lot of green for their evergreens this holiday season.

In a recent report from the New York Post, a roundup of live Christmas tree vendors around the Big Apple showed some varieties are being sold at rates as high as $6,500. Other sellers priced select trees in the $850 to $2,000 range.

And believe it or not, people are ponying up for the trees to spruce up their apartments for Christmas.

The heftiest $6,500 price tag was found at Soho Trees, which has seven stands located throughout Manhattan to service city dwellers eager to decorate their apartments with a real evergreen. Despite the cost, a sales manager told the outlet they are now sold out of the 20-foot Frasers, which went mostly to customers with penthouses or building lobbies to outfit. The price includes delivery and installation.

Fraser firs are in really short supply, and have been since the last recession, when growers cut back on planting them. It takes a decade or more for trees to grow to marketable size, which is usually seven to ten feet; even longer for the 20-footers. Plus, of course, they have to be transported to places like New York City - and that takes a lot of green as well.

Smaller trees, in the four-to-five-foot range, generally take just five years to grow, but they're hardly in high demand; even here in the Pacific Northwest they tend to be snubbed. Go to a U-Cut tree farm, and you'll find that they're not the size that are high on the hit parade. Around here, in fact, farmers generally won't even allow people onto those plots to molest the little ones. I always found it quieter, easier, and less expensive to just buy a $5 permit from the US Forest Service and go cut my own. But then, I like the Noble fir, which can be found in the national forest somewhere among the carpet of Douglas firs.

Back in NYC:

“The demand is higher than ever,” said Harold DeLucia, the owner of Tyler’s Trees and NYC Trees, which charges $1,429 for a 16-foot Fraser. “Business has already surpassed profits from last year.” Besides, said one Upper West Side shopper named Linda: “What’s Christmas without a tree?”

What, indeed?

 

To Drain The Swamp...

Start by getting rid of the lifer bureaucrats. Nobody elected them, after all, and for the most part they're parasites.

These un-elected bureaucrats, the faceless horde, the Deep State, the swamp if you will, the little despots drunk with power and the ability to screw with people’s lives, have risen up. They believe they are the only legitimate government of the United States. Presidents come and go, but they are forever. They’re striking back at a president that represents what they see as the ‘peasants’, the hayseeds, the fly-over states, deplorables who dare to question their authority, competency, and legitimacy.

That's a succinct summation of the long-time "business as usual" situation, so obviously if one plans to drain the swamp, that's Ground Zero.

 

California's Back In The News Again

Newly released data might have Californians once again praying for rain.

Almost all of the state has fallen into “abnormally dry” conditions, except for the furthest northern reaches of California, according to a U.S. Drought Monitor map released Nov. 12.

Apart from NorCal, about 81% of the state is classed as in trouble. It's looking as though "abnormally dry" is actually the new normal there. But then, historically, the state was mostly desert, so it may be simply reverting back to its preferred environmental status.

And another large business bids California farewell:

The budget hemorrhaging in California continues as yet another major business has announced their plans to flee the state for the greener pastures of Texas.

Quality Custom Distribution is a major distributor to some of the nation’s largest food chains, including Starbucks, Chipotle and Chick-fil-A.

They plan to begin operations out of Frisco, TX in the next two months.

Jobs in the finance department, customer service, purchasing, and accounting have already begun to be posted in Frisco.

The company was formerly based in Irvine, CA.

Quality Custom Distribution will be joining such other notable tenants in the Frisco office park as Jamba Juice, which also moved its headquarters from California in mid-2016.

They're just the latest; dozens of companies large and small have moved out over the past decade, and the pace shows no sign of slowing any time soon.

Of all the states, California ranks dead last for policy friendliness, with key negatives for high taxes, high workers compensation costs and high electricity costs, according to the most recent report from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

Hundreds of companies and their workers have left California over the last seven years, trading in their surfboards for cowboy boots in many cases.

By far, Texas gained the most from California’s corporate exodus, according to a new report by California site selection consultant Joseph Vranich.

Relying solely on publicly available information, Vranich concludes that 1,510 companies moved all or some of their operations out of California from 2008 through 2014, taking with them valuable jobs, investment dollars and tax revenue. Texas’ most recent big deal was Toyota Motor Corp.’s decision to relocate its North American headquarters in Plano, generating roughly 4,000 jobs and $350 million in investments. Vranich estimates 3,000 of those jobs will come from California.

According to California's Democrat politicians, everything's roses and unicorn farts - but the numbers don't lie. And their response seems to be "Who are you going to believe - me, or your own lying eyes"?

 

 

Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article237368339.html#storylink=cpy

Who'd Have Guessed?

The president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Grech, told the Wall Street Journal that he has seen an increased number of small businesses closing in the last six to nine months. He believes the rising closures are due to the minimum wage legislation.

“They’re cutting their staff. They’re cutting their hours. They’re shutting down,” Grech said. “It’s not just the rent.”

Meanwhile in Portland, facing a housing shortage, the city council just voted to impose a $60 annual fee on every housing unit owned by a landlord....

 

 

A VAT By Any Other Name

Is still a Value-Added Tax, and that's what Oregon's governor from Minnesota signed into law. To make matters worse, we voted the same thing down three years ago, so now she's taking steps to ensure that we can't get a measure on the ballot to repeat our past success.

On May 17, Gov. Kate Brown signed into law House Bill 3427, imposing a gross receipts tax on most Oregon businesses.

The new tax, $250, plus 0.57 percent of taxable commercial activity over $1 million, will have a significant impact on low-margin businesses, such as general contractors. This tax is on the gross receipts of a business, regardless of profitability, less only an amount equal to 35 percent of “cost inputs” or “labor costs.” Also, the tax is imposed on each step of the construction process (i.e., manufacturer, subcontractor, general contractor), resulting in taxation on the same economic value multiple times.

That is known as a VAT; not a "sales tax" as Democratics claim. The U.K. has the same thing; another tax added to each step of a production process.

It's one reason why a hamburger in the U.K. costs roughly three times what you'd pay for the same thing in an American fast-food joint.

Democratics here recognize that if allowed to vote on the matter, citizens would once again take it down in flames. So the only thing to do is to prevent Oregonians from putting it to a vote. Because they Know Better than You.

 

The Truth Behind The "Green New Deal"

Lest you believed otherwise:

During a recent meeting with Democrat presidential candidate Jay Inslee’s so-called climate director, Sam Ricketts, one of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s staff members admitted the truth about the radical freshman’s equally radical “Green New Deal.”

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, reportedly said to Ricketts.

“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” he then asked rhetorically, adding, “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Ever since the day AOC trotted out her radical GND in February, conservatives have been perfectly aware of the plan’s true intention.

It was obvious from the FAQ the congresswoman released at the time. The stunning document not only stipulated the elimination of air travel, combustion-engine vehicles, nuclear energy, fossil fuel energy and meat, but it also called for redesigning America from top to bottom and creating a utopia where everybody would be guaranteed a job (assuming they want one), in addition to free education, free healthcare, free housing, etc.

Screenshot from Green New Deal FAQ on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s website. It has since been deleted.

Unwilling to work? No problem - Occasional-Cortex has you covered.

If you didn't believe that they hate America, re-think.

 

California Schemin'

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's nation-leading gas prices are set to climb even higher Monday, when the state gas tax increases another 5.6 cents a gallon. California motorists were paying an average $3.75 per gallon as of late June, far above the national average of $2.71 calculated by AAA .

Keep voting for Democratics!

 

On Prosperity

They said it couldn’t be done. Well, Barack Obama did, anyway: “What magic wand do you have?”

The economy added 263,000 new jobs in April, driving unemployment to 3.6%, the lowest since 1969. Unemployment has now been below 4% for more than a year, something the Obama administration didn’t even attempt to achieve.

And Barry's been absolutely beside himself. He may not have cared much for Pantsuit, but he absolutely loathed Trump:

Obama struggled with what the American people had done and thought to himself that they 'simply could not have decided to replace him with a buffoonish showman whose calling cards had been repeated bankruptcies, serial marriages and racist dog whistles'.

Well, for eight long years, Barry was the Racist-in-Chief. And that was about his only accomplishment in orifice. Although there was the Mexican gun-running operation....

Let me be clear: Barry took the election result as a "personal insult" - and I couldn't be happier. I took his years in orifice as a personal insult. Payback!