Two-thirds of global investors believe the U.S. should raise taxes. (Photo Credit: CC BY/Alan Cleaver/Flickr)

Recent results on the quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of investors, traders and analysts indicate that global investors support the idea of the U.S. raising taxes to combat the budget deficit. Nearly two-thirds of investors polled believe that substantial deficit reduction will not be possible without additional tax revenue, a position that runs counter to the Republican stance on how to handle the federal deficit.

No easy agreement between Obama and GOP

Sixty percent of investors polled have significant doubt that President Obama and Republican lawmakers will be able to agree upon deficit-reducing measures before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1. However, an even higher percentage of respondents (70 percent) are “confident” that Congress will raise the $14.29 trillion debt limit in order to avoid default that would send borrowing costs skyrocketing for everyone, eliminate millions of jobs and hurl stocks, home values and retirement savings into a financial abyss.

Obama’s reinvigorated popularity can’t change facts

Obama’s popularity ratings have risen globally since the death of Osama bin Laden, but that has done nothing to quell foreign investor fears over what could happen if something resembling the GOP’s plan to keep taxes low is put into action. While the majority of U.S. investors in the Bloomberg poll favored the GOP approach to the nation’s budget, 55 percent of them still don’t think it’s possible to cut the federal deficit “significantly” without raising taxes.

As it currently stands, the U.S. budget deficit will decrease slightly to $1.1 trillion in fiscal 2012. Fiscal 2011 will end with an approximate deficit of $1.5 trillion.

Taxation, without entitlements

Sacred cows like Social Security and Medicare-related programs, which make up more than 40 percent of the federal budget, have traditionally been off limits from spending cuts. This has prompted some to assert that higher taxes are the only way to make a deficit-busting difference. While unpopular, if a presidential administration were to be able to convince lawmakers and the electorate that tapping into such entitlements is a good idea, it could lower the national debt for future generations. Currently, Social Security, at 20 percent of the federal budget, receives $707 billion annually, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Medicare and related programs receive $732 billion (21 percent).

Instead of dipping into entitlements, Harvard University economics professor Martin Feldstein suggests in a recent New York Times op-ed that a better alternative may be increasing tax revenue, rather than tax rates, by limiting tax deductions, credits and exclusions.

Higher interest rates

Bond market yields are at a 10-year low, according to Bloomberg. As there is an inverse relationship between bond values and interest rates, numerous experts fear that interest rates will become dramatically higher, a traditional result of a market crisis. The number of investors who believe another market crisis will hit the U.S. rose from 18 to 22 percent between the last two quarterly Bloomberg polls.

Sources

Bloomberg

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

New York Times

Wikipedia entry for bond market

Cenk Uygur on taxes and the deficit

Ready to serve! (Photo: www.instructables.com)

You’ve heard of those remedies that supposedly improve your memory, focus and thinking ability, right? Sometimes they’re natural substances like berries and roots, other times they’re not so natural (pharmaceutical would be the operative word). Whatever the case, these brain-boosting supplements are frequently expensive, so much so that using them long-term could eventually put you in a situation where one little emergency could put your budget in territory where no fax payday loans and cash advances are necessary to keep you on your feet.

However, if you’ve already given your life to the military by enlisting, I suppose they would consider that ample payment for them to experiment on you with the very latest DARPA technology that fosters brain optimization and synchronizes brain function. In a way, it’s mind control on the part of the military leaders enlisted men and women are programmed to trust. Once the sanctity of the mind is breached, however, you trust no one.

Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy

Katie Drummond reports for Wired that the U.S. military is determined to crack the mysteries of the human mind open like an egg. In 2008, your tax dollars funded Pentagon research into replicating the function of a cat’s brain. Why? So they could move on to higher levels, such as reproducing a monkey mind! Ostensibly, it was so that they could further understand how brain damage works, or so that the connection between thermodynamic energy and brain function could become more understood.

But what are they REALLY after?

Here’s what the Pentagon wants to do with DARPA’s help: they want to turn soldiers’ brains into hard drives. No, not exactly like Johnny Mnemonic; the military wants to “optimize human memory storage and recall by synchronizing neural brain waves.” Not only would syncing they up possibly bring about better retention, but it may also make troops EASIER TO CONTROL. Yes, I’m talking mind control, people. As if troops don’t give their country enough.

Looking at the scientific details

Forming memories and recalling them from long-term memory storage in our brains are both functions that depend upon how brain waves work together. First of all, Gamma waves facilitate help us make memories, while Theta waves write the immediate short-term memories into lasting information in our long-term memory. If they were to simply throw in some Alpha waves synchronization, we could be looking at the rudiments of mind control.

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Where DARPA wants to mess around with this system is as follows: they want to use technology to burn orders directly into brains via taking control of the Gamma and Theta waves. Their stated theory is that this would “optimize” brains and give troops the ability to absorb larger bits of information during stressful situations. DARPA, according to Drummond, wants to  “increase the total quantity of information reliably recalled from a given learning session over a minimum of three durations – 24 hours, one week, and one month, post exposure.”

What will this do to jobs?

DARPA is doing this to improve the efficiency of military forces. If fewer people are required to process large blocks of information, that means staff will be let go. If the technology were to reach beyond military sectors, a similar problem would occur in the commercial workforce. Better brains mean fewer employees.

But here’s one of my biggest problems… how much money is being spent on all this research? It isn’t entirely clear, as some of the applications would be rather black ops classified.  It’s a large amount, I believe it’s safe to say. This reminds me of what Barney Frank had to say recently about the F-22 jet fighter on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” President Obama recently discontinued production of it, largely because it was designed for Cold War combat. We no longer live in that era, and warfare has changed. Discontinuing the F-22 will likely save America a great deal in its defense budget, which prompted Frank to tell Maddow that if we were to cut out all of the extraneous projects from our defense budget, the money left over would be more than enough to ensure that every person in this country has good health insurance.

What do you say, Pentagon and DARPA? Drop the thinly-veiled brain optimization/mind control experiments and give back all that money? I’m sure you won’t need payday loans and cash advances afterward; you’ll still be sitting pretty.

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