The Real Value of $100 in Each State

This week’s tax map shows the real value of $100 in each state. Because average prices for similar goods are much higher in California or New York than in Mississippi or South Dakota, the same amount of dollars will buy you comparatively less in the high-price states, or comparatively more in low-price states. Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that we’ve written about previously, we adjust the value of $100 to reflect how prices are different in each state.

For example, Tennessee is a low-price state, where $100 will buy what would cost $110.25 in another state that is closer to the national average. You can think of this as meaning that Tennesseans are about ten percent richer than their nominal incomes suggest.

The states where $100 is worth the least are the District of Columbia ($84.60), Hawaii ($85.32), New York ($86.66), New Jersey ($87.64), and California ($88.57). That same money goes the furthest in Mississippi ($115.74), Arkansas ($114.16), Missouri ($113.51), Alabama (113.51), and South Dakota ($113.38).

Regional price differences are strikingly large, and have serious policy implications. The same amount of dollars are worth almost 40 percent more in Mississippi than in DC, and the differences become even larger if metro area prices are considered instead of statewide averages. A person who makes $40,000 a year after tax in Kentucky would need to have after-tax earnings of $53,000 in Washington, DC just in order to have an equal standard of living, let alone feel richer.

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Source: TaxFoundation.Org

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New definition of retirement = work until you die: Half of Americans have little to no savings for what will likely be a long and drawn out retirement.

The ideal vision of retirement is one of constant leisure supported by a sizable nest egg. Building a nest egg takes decades of discipline and careful planning. Unfortunately, many Americans did not adequately prepare and combined with the casino like financial system, many have been washed out of the system. Many retiring baby boomers are going to use Social Security as their primary crutch for retirement income. The Social Security system was never designed to be the primary target for retirement income yet this is what we are facing. The problem of course is that Americans simply do not have much sizable wealth in stocks and bonds. While the majority of Americans own houses, most own very little to no stocks. This is why the current record in the stock market means little in the face of an imminent retirement. Also, the one vehicle to build net worth in housing is largely locking out young future buyers thanks to massive buying from Wall Street and big investors nearly guaranteeing another retirement disaster after this one. One crisis at a time. So why will so many Americans be in dire financial situations as they enter their golden years?

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mybudget360.com / mybudget360 / August 23, 2014

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Death of the Dollar

Prosecutors are simply lawyers gone really bad and enjoy their power without comprehending the full depth of their actions. The sanctions against Standard Chartered are insane and this will drive more and more banks away from using the dollar in international transactions. It is the prosecutors who are setting the stage for the new one-world reserves currency.

Standard Chartered has been banned from opening US dollar bank accounts without explicit approval by US regulators, according to an article in The London Times. The bank has seen severe restrictions imposed on it, after US officials warned that the bank may be“a conduit for illegal transactions,” the report says. The bank has also been forced to cease US dollar clearing through its NY branch for “high-risk retail business clients,”the Times reports.

The prosecutors have no concept of what they are doing. This is killing the dollar in international transactions in the same manner as FATCA. Rather than report US citizens with accounts and comply with fines for mistakes, the banks have just refused to accept accounts from Americans. Now the prosecutors are ensuring that the bankers will not even deal in dollars if they believe they can prosecute banks overseas for violating US decrees that have no legal application in foreign lands.

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armstrongeconomics.com / by Martin Armstrong / August 21, 2014

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NAFTA Is 20 Years Old – Here Are 20 Facts That Show How It Is Destroying The Economy

Back in the early 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement was one of the hottest political issues in the country.  When he was running for president in 1992, Bill Clinton promised that NAFTA would result in an increase in the number of high quality jobs for Americans that it would reduce illegal immigration.  Ross Perot warned that just the opposite would happen.  He warned that if NAFTA was implemented there would be a "giant sucking sound" as thousands of businesses and millions of jobs left this country.  

Most Americans chose to believe Bill Clinton.  Well, it is 20 years later and it turns out that Perot was right and Clinton was dead wrong.  But now history is repeating itself, and most Americans don't even realize that it is happening.  As you will read about at the end of this article, Barack Obama has been negotiating a secret trade treaty that is being called "NAFTA on steroids", and if Congress adopts it we could lose millions more good paying jobs.

It amazes me how the American people can fall for the same lies over and over again.  The lies that serial liar Barack Obama is telling about "free trade" and the globalization of the economy are the same lies that Bill Clinton was telling back in the early 1990s.  The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Paul Craig Roberts...

I remember in the 90′s when former Presidential candidate Ross Perot emphatically stated that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) would create a giant “sucking sound” of jobs being extracted away from the U.S.  He did not win the election, and NAFTA was instituted on Jan. 1, 1994. Now, 20 years later, we see the result of all the jobs that have been “sucked away” to other countries.

According to an article by the Economic Policy Institute on 1/3/14:

“Clinton and his collaborators promised that the deal would bring “good-paying American jobs,” a rising trade surplus with Mexico, and a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration. Considering that thousands of kids are pouring over the border as we speak, well, how’d that work out for us?

Many Americans like to remember Bill Clinton as a "great president" for some reason.  Well, it turns out that he was completely and totally wrong about NAFTA.  The following are 20 facts that show how NAFTA is destroying the economy...

#1 More than 845,000 American workers have been officially certified for Trade Adjustment Assistance because they lost their jobs due to imports from Mexico or Canada or because their factories were relocated to those nations.

#2 Overall, it is estimated that NAFTA has cost us well over a million jobs.

#3 U.S. manufacturers pay Mexican workers just a little over a dollar an hour to do jobs that American workers used to do.

#4 The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States has more than doubled since the implementation of NAFTA.

#5 In the year before NAFTA, the U.S. had a trade surplus with Mexico and the trade deficit with Canada was only 29.6 billion dollars.  Last year, the U.S. had a combined trade deficit with Mexico and Canada of 177 billion dollars.

#6 It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

#7 One professor has estimated that cutting the total U.S. trade deficit in half would create 5 million more jobs in the United States.

#8 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.  In fact, many of them are now being built in Mexico.

#9 NAFTA hasn't worked out very well for Mexico either.  Since 1994, the average yearly rate of economic growth in Mexico has been less than one percent.

#10 The exporting of massive amounts of government-subsidized U.S. corn down into Mexico has destroyed more than a million Mexican jobs and has helped fuel the continual rise in the number of illegal immigrants coming north.

#11 Someone making minimum wage in Mexico today can buy 38 percent fewer consumer goods than the day before NAFTA went into effect.

#12 Overall, the United States has lost a total of more than 56,000manufacturing facilities since 2001.

#13 Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs.  Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#14 We have fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than we did in 1950 even though our population has more than doubled since then.

#15 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, only 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#16 As I wrote about recently, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.

#17 Because we have shipped millions of jobs overseas, the competition for the jobs that remain has become extremely intense and this has put downward pressure on wages.  Right now, half the country makes$27,520 a year or less from their jobs.

#18 When adults cannot get decent jobs, it is often children that suffer the most.  It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.

#19 In 1994, only 27 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

#20 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

For much more on this, please watch the video by Charlie LeDuff posted below.  It is well worth a few minutes of your time...

So if NAFTA is so bad for American workers, then why don't our politicians just repeal it?

Continue Reading at The Economic Collapse Blog ...

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Dilbert Explains The Tech Bubble With A Cartoon... From 1996

zerohedge.com / by Tyler Durden on 08/18/2014 19:45

It’s never different this time…

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THE RISE OF THE ‘PETRO-YUAN’ AND THE SLOW EROSION OF DOLLAR HEGEMONY

For four decades, the dollar’s standing as the world’s most important currency—which has under-girded much of America’s post-World War II primacy in international affairs—has rested largely on the greenback’s dominant role in international energy markets.

Washington’s ability to leverage the security concerns of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Arab states to influence their decision-making on how their oil exports are priced and their petrodollar surpluses recycled has been central to consolidating and maintaining the dollar’s unique role in international energy markets.

China’s rise, as a global economic power and as Persian Gulf energy producers’ most important incremental market, poses the biggest challenge yet to the indefinite prolongation of dollar dominance, as the era of the petro-yuan begins.

Continuous Reading: THE RISE OF THE ‘PETRO-YUAN’ AND THE SLOW EROSION OF DOLLAR HEGEMONY  (via www.silverdoctors.com)

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