1. Believe the politicians and do nothing; or
2. Hedge your bets and prepare to survive hyperinflation.

In either event, do not be ignorant… WATCH THE THREE VIDEOS BELOW…

In the two videos below, Tim Berners-Lee introduces the fact that a huge amount of the knowledge of the human race is sitting in databases, waiting to be unlocked, searched and shared.  There is an enormous amount of raw government data, weather data, event information, news items, digital presentations, financial data, scientific data, maps, and growing volumes of personal data in social networks. Imagine if it could be automatically searched and combined in new, original ways.

That’s exactly what this legendary inventor is now imagining. “It’s called linked data. I want you to make it. I want you to demand it” he tells his audience. He stays far away from the technical details as he delivers the vision of what could happen in a world where all the data on the web can be automatically linked to form new relationships and new knowledge.

To get a good idea of what it can do, watch the two videos below.  And for investment applications, check out the kind of information you can get on the Nasdaq-100 Index Tracking Stock: QQQQ, for example.

The TRADER6 Profit Planner is similar in that it allows an open trade to hover between a leading stop and a trailing stop to maximize profits and minimize losses.

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
• The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too.
It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Part One

Part Two

Consider this:

• 229 million:   The number of income tax returns filed with the IRS in 2006.  
• $2.2 trillion:  The amount collected by the IRS in 2006. 
• $1.2 trillion:  The amount collected by the IRS in 2006 from just income taxes.  
• $200 billion:  The amount spent by the federal government on federal tax compliance, which is more money than it takes to produce every vehicle in the United States.
• 114,000:  The number of IRS emplloyees.
• $10 billion:  The amount spent by the federal government to pay IRS employees.
• 60:  The percentage of filers that seek professional help preparing their tax returns because they find it confusing and difficult to understand. 
• 38:  The percentage of the total income an average family pays to the IRS, which is more than the average family spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined.
• 2,000,000:  The number of documents that will be lost by the IRS this year.
• 80,000,000:  People that call the I.R.S. Information Hotline phone number every year.
• 26,000,000:  The number of calls unanswered by the IRS.
• 47 percent:  The percentage of callers that receive incorrect answers to their queries.
• $13.7 billion:  The annual cost of operating the IRS.
• 17,000:  The number of pages in the current Tax Law.
• 5,557,000:  The number of words in the income tax laws.
• 569:  The number of tax forms available.
• 293,760:  The number of trees it takes each year to supply the IRS with paper.
• 8 billion:  The number of pages of paper used to file income taxes.
• 28:  The number of times 8 billion pages laid end to end would wrap around the earth.
• 653:  The number of minutes (nearly 11 hours) the IRS estimates it takes to fill out a 1040 form.
• 72:  The number of inches of height of the stack of tax forms in the Chrysler Corporation’s tax return.
• $24,000,000,000:  The difference between what corporations said they owed and what the IRS said they owed in 1992.  The government admits this gap is due to ambiguity and complexity in the tax code.
• 46:  The number of wrong answers Money magazine received when it asked 46 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family’s tax liability.
• $34,672:  The difference in liability between the highest and lowest incorrect answers among the 46 professionals who failed to calculate the tax liability of Money magazine’s hypothetical family.
• $610:  The amount the hypothetical family would have overpaid on its taxes if it had used the answer that came closest to the actual tax liability.
• 25:  The percentage of households with incomes over $50,000 that would pay an inaccurate assessment from the IRS rather than fight.
• 1,300:  The number of IRS employees investigated and/or disciplined for improperly viewing the tax returns of friends, neighbors, and others.
• 50:  The percentage of top IRS managers who admitted they would use their position to intimidate personal enemies.
• 80:  The number of IRS agents referred for criminal investigation on charges of taking kickbacks for fraudulent refund checks.
• 109:  The number of envelopes containing unprocessed information found in the trash at the IRS’s Philadelphia Service Center.
• 3,500,000:  The number of people who fail to file because they find the tax code intimidating.
• $3,500: The amount one woman was forced to pay twice, even though the IRS eventually admitted the debt had been owed – and paid – by her former husband.
• $210,260:  The amount the IRS tried to garnish from the wages of a woman for the back taxes her husband had owed before their marriage.
• $26:  The amount the IRS seized from a 6-year-old’s bank account because her parents owed money.
• $70,000:  The amount demanded by an IRS agent who was threatening to send a couple to jail in a case that the tax court subsequently dismissed because the IRS’s claim “was not reasonable in fact or in law.”
• $6,484,339: The amount demanded by the IRS from the family of a victim of Pan Am flight 103, based on the assumption of a future settlement.
• $900,000:  The amount a small businessman was fined after being entrapped by his accountant, a paid informer for the IRS.
• $5,300,000:  The amount the IRS paid its informants in 1993.
• 33,984,689:  The number of civil penalties assessed by the IRS in 1996.
• 10,000:  The number of properties seized by the IRS in 1996.
• 750,000:  The number of liens issued by the IRS against taxpayers in 1996. 
• 2,100,000:  The number of IRS audits conducted in 1996. 
• 85:  The percentage of taxpayers selected by the IRS for random audits who had incomes less than $25,000.
• 3,253,000:  The number of times the IRS seized bank accounts or paychecks in 1992.
• $46,806:  The amount of tax penalty imposed on one taxpayer in 1993 for an alleged underpayment of 10 cents.
• $155:  The amount of penalty imposed on a taxpayer in 1995 for an alleged underpayment of 1 cent.
• $14,000:  The amount allegedly owed by a daycare center that was raided by armed agents, who then refused to release the children until parents pledged to give the government money.
• $3,000,000,000:  The dollar assets of Princeton/Newport, an investment company that was forced into liquidation after 40 armed federal agents raided the company on suspicion of tax evasion; only to have the IRS later conclude that Princeton/Newport actually had overpaid its taxes.
• $10,000:  The fine imposed on one taxpayer for using a 12-pitch typewriter to fill out his tax forms instead of a 10-pitch typewriter.

1. Primary Objective: Return OF Capital;
2. Secondary Objective: Return ON Capital

Disregard them and weep at your losses.