Sunday edit: The "government gone wild" will now be taxing capital gains on unearned income to pay for health care for those whom the government chooses to give it to.... Brinker calls it the HEALTHCARE TAX ON CAPITAL GAINS."
Honey EC: The next step for Obama and Pelosi? Put multi-millions of ILLEGAL ALIENS inside the U.S. now on the path to citizenship which, according to laws already on the books, would give them the right to bring all of their extended families into the country -- even those who are too old, sick or lazy to ever work a day in their life! Free health care for the world courtesy of your investment profits and your payroll tax that you have paid for years!
Altogether this weekend, Brinker spent a lot of time talking about the tax increases that are coming down the pike as a result of Obamacare and other tax increases he expects. He spelled out some of the future brackets and how ridiculous it is for the government to keep going after the same people for more taxes.
Brinker talked about the new 3.8% tax on unearned-income (IF OBAMACARE IS PASSED) for most of the first two hours. Brinker said this new tax will apply to ALL dividends, interest, annuities, royalties and rent and capital gains -- even on the sale of real estate.
The second caller in hour-one (Mitch, who is a veterinarian), took Brinker to task because Brinker has never talked about this health care bill over the past year. He was absolutely correct! Brinker has almost never talked about this bill on Moneytalk until today!
Brinker became very angry at Mitch! But as usual, he thinks very fast and is an expert at dissembling and basically using words in such a way that most listeners would never suspect he is not being truthful! When that happens, he makes sure that he never lets the caller back on to set the record straight. However, Brinker never hesitates to hammer a caller later in the program, as he did Mitch today -- telling another caller that Mitch was "off the rails."
[Honey EC: No Bob, it is YOU who are "off the rails." I know for a fact that you never talked about this health care bill before today, other than perhaps in the most general way. Shame on you for not only misleading listeners, but embarrassing a caller. One of the few that ever gets on the air to give you a dose of reality!]
Basically, Brinker contradicted Mitch and claimed that he HAD talked about the "health care SYSTEM" over the past year. It's true that he talked about some aspects of the "system," but he has never talked about the bill like he did today.
The reason? It's very clear. He admitted today that the 3.8% tax increase on unearned income was entirely the idea of one Barack Hussein Obama! Since his election, Brinker has avoided mentioning Obama as much as possible, and vigorously avoided putting blame on him for anything. Today that changed! Brinker said this tax increase was Obama's "worst idea," and that Obama has "no concept of economics." A caller went a bit further and said "Obama speaks with forked tongue."
Here is an excellent analysis of the Medicare tax increase written by poster "dew-diligence":
"The Healthcare Bill and Investment Income
Inasmuch as this is an investment board, it ought to be noted that the healthcare bill as current constructed includes the first-ever Medicare tax applied to investment income in the form of dividends, interest, and capital gains. The bill calls for a 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income for individuals and couples whose adjusted gross income exceeds a certain threshold.
Why is a new 3.8% tax on rich people a big deal? Because the new tax breaches the conceptual wall that has always existed between employment income and investment income whereby it was implicitly acknowledged that the capital one invests to generate investment income was taxed when it was originally earned.
If the provision to levy a Medicare tax on investment income becomes law, what’s next? Applying the Social Security tax to dividends and capital gains would seem to be a likely successor. In due course, the lion’s share of investment income in all forms may end up belonging to the government."
Saturday, Brinker did not say anything about the stock market or the bond market. However, there was a caller in hour-one who asked Brinker a question about "portfolio III." Brinker said that he was very sure that his listeners "had no idea" what she was talking about. So for the umpteenth time, he explained that it is the balanced portfolio that he publishes in his "monthly investment letter" for those in or near retirement.
[Honey EC: That was a good one, Bob! Not a weekend goes by that you don't accept a call on this subject and explain portfolio III in detail. You have even divulged most of what's in it: You say it's about 50-50 stocks/bonds. You have even talked about which stocks and bonds. For example, VTSMX is the major stock holding. It also has a couple of managed funds, but the percent of each is infinitesimal. You recently added a very small percentage of Vanguard International Growth. On the bond side, you have 20% Vanguard Ginnie Mae, and the other 30% divided between Vanguard TIPS and VFSTX.
BTW: That fund is still about 10% underwater from the market all-time-high to February 28th -- last month. Retiree's lost 23.9% riding the 2008-2009 mega-bear market fully invested as Brinker advised them to do. That was during a time that the bond market did exceptionally well. OUCH!]
Brinker's most ridiculous quote of the day: A caller was concerned about the government taking over student loans (if Obamacare passes) -- he reminded Brinker about Fannie and Freddie. Brinker said: "There is no evidence they will use bad judgment giving out student loans." [Honey EC: "ROAR"!!]
Brinker's Saturday guest-speaker was William Cohan. (Be sure to download hour 3 of the program from KGO if you want to save this interview for free.)
Brinker's Sunday guest-speaker was Mark Gilbert: "Complicit: How Greed & Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable"
Moneytalk To Go is Available on Demand Totally Free at KGO810 radio for seven days after broadcast. The three hours of the programs are archived Saturday and Sunday 1-4pm. To download the programs and listen later, just choose the day, right click on each hour that you want and use "Save Link as." KGO Moneytalk Archives [Link] If you want to call KGO and complain about (or praise) Bob Brinker's Moneytalk, here are the numbers: Comments line: 415-216-1052....Listener services: 415-216-1050. Here is the KGO email address -- cut-and-paste it into your email compose window: kgofeedback@yahoo.com
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