On Monday January 14, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
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Part 1 (12:49)
Ryan and Louis discuss the Federal Reserve minutes. Louis notes the what the Fed does is most important and that it’s also important what the Fed says, but only in the short time.
Louis predicts a continuation of quantitative easing and that gold and silver will continue to rise.
Ryan notes that the Fed is talking up the economy.
Louis notes that the Fed is concerned that the perception is that the they will continue to print will under mine confidence in the dollar and therefore they talk down their quantitative easing plans.
Louis notes that the Fed will continue with QE but is not interested in being first among countries in the race to debase.
Louis and Ryan discuss the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. Louis notes that the debt ceiling doesn’t need to be raised for the US to pay interest on its debt.
Louis notes that Democrats and Republicans are both fans of spending and have no interest in cutting spending and are interested in raising the debt ceiling so they can continue spending.
Ryan and Louis discuss some examples of government waste and how the government picks winners and loses by allocating subsidies.
On Monday December 17, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
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Part 1 (14:15)
Ryan covers the week’s economic event including the fiscal cliff talks.
On Monday January 7, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
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Part 1 (15:00)
Louis and Ryan discuss the fiscal cliff deal/ Both had predicted Congress would come up with a plan that would not cut spending.
Louis notes that the Social security withholding went from 4.2 to 6.2% and top rates went up to 39 percent. Louis notes that both of these while increases are technically not as they come about as a result of letting the prior cuts expire.
Louis notes that the resolution of the fiscal cliff negotiations did not lead to a reduction in the deficit
Louis notes that raising taxes could result in few taxes being collected.
Ryan notes that the mortgage debt forgiveness relief act was extended as part of the fiscal cliff deal.
Louis notes that a lot of new spending and tax breaks were also included in the deal. Louis notes the bill was 157 pages and passed in three minutes!
Louis notes the dynamic where each Senator and Congressman has an incentive to continue spending.
Louis notes the FOMC minutes that indicated that they might stop buying treasuries. Louis says its “all talk”.
On Monday December 10, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
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Part 1 (14:37)
Ryan notes that the Federal Reserve will be buying 90% of the new debt the US issues. Louis notes that governments need to grow and need revenue and can only get so much from taxation and have in recent years have resorted to borrowing printing money to meet its spending obligations. Louis predicts another round of buying from the Federal Reserve this week.
Louis notes that the US economy is now a debt based economy with 70% of the GDP based on consumer spending of borrowed money and a good portion based on the real estate industry which involves people merely moving in and out of homes. Louis notes that this is not the basis of a sound economy that produces things, saves their money and there fore can afford to buy things and houses.
Louis notes that even though the unemployment rate has gone down, an increasing number of young people are out of work and the number of people out of the labor force has increased by over 500,000. Unemployed people can’t buy houses.
Louis notes that a demand based economy is a loser and that one with productions and savings is sustainable.
Louis notes that the federal reserve over powers the market.
Louis notes that the “tax the rich” issue is a smoke screen that diverts attention from the deficit because taxing the rich does not solve the deficit as the money proposed to be taken from the rich will pay to operate the government for eight days.
Louis notes that the US doesn’t owe $100 Trillion because some rich people made too much money.
Louis notes that taxing the rich often results in receiving less tax revenue and the concept of taxation is that somehow the government own your money and allows you to keep some of it.
On Monday December 3, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
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Part 1 (13:19)
Ryan and Louis discuss the fiscal cliff. Ryan predicts that they will “kick the can down the road”. Ryan notes the proposal by Treasury Secretary Geithner made on behalf of the President to allow the President to unilaterally by pass Congress and raise the debt ceiling.
Louis notes that such a proposal is unconstitutional as Congress is in charge of the allocation of spending.Louis notes that politicians do not want to spend money responsibly but rather want to blame someone else for any cuts in spending. Louis describes the current situation as a “splendid mess”
Ryan notes that news of the fiscal cliff dominates the news cycle but was not mentioned at all during the Presidential election.
Louis notes that even if the fiscal cliff is not avoided and a deal not struck, it will be soon. Louis predicts that even if the tax increases kick in automatically the IRS may not take out the increased with holdings while Congress comes up with a tax cut and that Congress would re-institute any spending cuts.
Louis notes that fiscal cliff will be avoided one way or another and that the deficit will not be cut in any meaningful way.
Louis notes that with the massive amount of US debt there may be no point in either cutting spending or raising taxes as the bulk of the deficit will be covered merely by printing money.
Louis notes that taxing the rich is a sticking point for the Democrats and the President which indicates that people would rather see the money of the wealthy in the hands of the government even if there is waste fraud and abuse in the government.
Louis notes that its possible when you raise tax rates you could lose tax revenues as the rich may invest less in their businesses less and make less money so overall they will be fewer dollars in taxes.
Louis notes that the Fed not only prints money to pay off foreign creditors and investors but also prints money to buy US treasuries to fund the US deficits.
Louis notes that the Fed is not just the buyer of last resort of US treasuries but increasingly the only buyer as they are not buying 70%+ of all US treasuries with money printed out of thin air.
On Monday November 26, 2012, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain, was a guest on the Real Estate 360 Live radio show on The Big Talker 1580 WHFS AM, hosted by Ryan Sloper.
Listen to the show.
Part 1 (14:35)
Ryan and Louis discuss the fiscal cliff. Louis predicts that Congress will come up with a solution and that we have already gone off the fiscal cliff, they just don’t want to pull the parachute. Louis notes that the deficit is $16 Trillion and unfunded liabilities are $86 trillion and no amount of taxes or growth will be able to pay off that amount of debt.
Louis notes that Congress is worried about avoiding the automatic spending cuts and taxes increases scheduled to prevent a recession. Louis notes that there would be a recession, but that the recession is the cure to the poor economy, but that Congress will have no interest in really cutting spending. Louis notes that if Congress avoids the “fiscal cliff’ the markets will rally.
Louis notes that most of the revenues don’t come from taxes but from borrowing from foreign sovereigns and from the Federal Reserve buying US Treasuries with money they print out of thin air. Louis notes that on top of printing money to fund deficits, the Fed also attempts to stimulate the economy with QE1, 2 & 3 which involves printing money out of thin air to buy US treasuries and mortgage securities.
Louis notes that all the printing and spending will end badly but there is no appetite to stop it because government always needs money and its citizens are always willing to take the money that government redistributes.
Louis predicts that taxing the “rich” will also be part of the solution to the fiscal cliff. Louis notes that this will not solve the deficit problem and only gives expression to envy. Louis notes that people are always in favor of higher taxes -on somebody else. Louis notes that taxing the rich is a slippery slope as 90 percent of the population can vote to raise taxes on the top 10% , then 80% to raise taxes on the top 20% and eventually 51% to raise taxes on the top 49% which Louis views as mobocracy.
Louis notes that as part of the fiscal cliff solution there won’t be spending cuts, just cuts in the growth in the rate of spending.
Ryan describes this type of solution as just kicking the can down the road. Ryan notes that taxing the rich will back fire as they will cut their workforces. Ryan notes that politicians don’t understand economics 101. Louis notes that politicians may or may not understand economics 101, but they do understand politics 101. Louis notes that people don’t understand that you can take ALL of the wealth from the wealthy and that would run the government for just a few hundred days.
Louis notes that the problem is spending and that people want things from government and they want someone else to pay for it.
Louis notes that the Fed is Congress’ best friend as it enables them to continue spending without having to go back to the tax payers to ask for more money.
Louis notes the market will eventually the Fed, once borrowers realizes that the Fed will continue to devalue the currency that its bonds are denominated in and when that happens interest rates will rise and the dollar drops and the spending won’t be able to continue. At that point there will be inflation and you will be lucky to own commodities and real estate.
Louis predicts that if Congress avoids the fiscal cliff, the rating agencies may down grade the US debt rating and that may cause the dollar to drop and interest rates to rise.
Louis notes that taxing the rich can not pay off the deficit and that taxing the rich is a populist concept, not an economic one
