Posts Tagged ‘unemployment’

Manufacturing Is Needed In US Now

Monday, March 8th, 2010

I have been screaming to anybody who would listen for the last few years that we need to get manufacturing going in the US again.  Even if it is using computers, robots and minimal human intervention, we need to restore our manufacturing base here in the US. 

Granted, there are some businesses with heavy machinery and some aircraft that are made here but those tend to be few and they don’t employ as many people as we need to get working again.

People, you need to get your Congressional leaders going to start opening up funds to create work locally in the cities and states here in the country.  Unemployment is going to run out for people sooner and later and rather than the slow death of people running out of work and money, how about we start turning the beast that is our economy around now and start getting people employed.

More incentives for US citizens need to be employed and work that is in-shore and not off-shored.  Don’t get me wrong, I think internationally but for the long term survival of our nation we need to rebuild nationally.

Tax time is here and the season is over in about five or so weeks.  If there is anything you need worked on, I am still taking clients.

If you are interested in starting a manufacturing company, please drop me a line and let’s talk.

Thanks for your continued support for my Curio & Relics book.  It is going well and for all of you who are interested in more firearm books, please drop me a line because I am taking requests from my readers (since they are ultimately my audience and critics) of what you want me to publish next.

Be safe, sane and have a great time everybody.

Mar 08 2010

Kim Greenblatt

Manufacturing Is Needed In US Now

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Kim G on Unemployment Benefits

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

The economy for the average person overall has been lousy.

Congress may be enacting some other unemployment extensions because things are just so lousy in the economy.  Yes, we are in a financial Depression.  Here is some information that your pal, Kim Isaac Greenblatt, is providing for those amongst the many that are on unemployment, in terms of how it works and what happens with it at tax time.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) excludes the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits from tax in 2009. The act also increases the benefit by $25 per week and extends the time to receive the benefits.

When a taxpayer faces a period of unemployment, he is often eligible to receive benefits under a state or federal unemployment insurance program. Unemployment compensation is reported to the taxpayer in Form 1099-G, box 1, a copy of which you should get at the end of the year if you were on unemployment.   Unemployment compensation is fully taxable and is entered on Form 1040EZ, line 3; on Form 1040A, line 13; or on Form 1040, line 19.  A taxpayer who receives unemployment compensation may request that the payer withhold 10% of the benefits from each check to go toward his federal income tax liability. This may be done by filing Form W-4V with the payer.

If a taxpayer received an overpayment of unemployment compensation during 2008, and repaid all or part of it during 2008, subtract the amount repaid from the amount shown on Form 1099-G and enter the result on the appropriate line on the tax return. In the space to the left of the line, write “Repaid” and the amount repaid.

If the taxpayer repays unemployment benefits received in a previous year, things get a little more complicated. For that situation you will need to do some additional research if you encounter it. Page 88 of IRS Publication 17 contains a discussion of repaying unemployment benefits from a a previous year and you can find that file on the IRS website or order directly a copy from them by snail mail.

Good luck everybody and have a great day.   If you need somebody to help you with your taxes, please send me an email or post.  I am always looking for new clients.

Oct 15 2009

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Kim G on Unemployment Benefits

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Market Strategies Jul 22 2009 and Create More Jobs

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Question from a reader:”Market is recovering.  I don’t trust it.  Kim, what should I do? Also, what is this about more unemployment?  I can see the stimulus isn’t working as fast as people thought.”

My answer is do your own due diligence, keep your money in cash if you are unsure about the future and remember that you should be writing your Congressmen, Governor and President to create more jobs – now!  Aren’t you tired of them saying that there will be more unemployment next year?  Granted it takes time to get the economy to recover but all branches of government, all political parties and all players need to know that without the average man or woman spending their money, the economy isn’t going to move.  How about creating some more projects like they did in the Great Depression of the 1930s?

Organizations like the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, were created to build dams and work on the infrastructure.  We need lots of those organizations created and going now.  In order for the Fed and the respective State governments to collect taxes they need the general population to be making income so that it can be taxed.  With unemployment looking at around 20% realistically – and maybe even higher – it is a tough way to squeeze blood out of a stone.

Okay, so listen up political leaders and get more jobs created at the grass roots level.  We all need to work and keep working!  Hello?  Is anybody in office out there hearing me?

Ahem.  Okay, back to the other part of your question.  My take is that we are in more of a continued sideways movement.  I am not an investment specialist and I invite and suggest you take my advice with a grain of salt but I am thinking that things will be sideways for awhile.  The doom and gloom people are predicting the next big drop – I think we will get one but not for a few months at the earliest and the Fed is optimistic that we are going to recover in the last quarter – I don’t see that easily happening either with so many people in American and throughout the world out of work.

Suggestions for things to invest in?

I would say you may want to check here.  I always get leery when everybody – pundits, the Internet alleged gurus and people as a group say something is going one way.  Bells and whistles go off in my head and I tend to look at things moving the other way – a contrarian point of view to be sure but I really believe that once everybody else is jumping on the bandwagon, in this high speed electronic age, the information is staledated.  I love that word.

 

Staledated goes back to the days – and still applies – when you would write a check and the check would only be good for 90 days and then have to be reissued because the banks wouldn’t cash it.  More times than not, if a bank teller – a human one – didn’t check the date, it would go through and still be cashed.  The check would go stale like bad bread.  You would have to issue another.

Internet information and investing advice is pretty much the same story.  With the speed that things change it is pretty hard to stay current or give any kind of suggestion that is meaningful for something other than a very specific time period and a very specific topic.  That works for me – it just means that you and I have to be willing to do a lot of our own research and not rely on other people’s suggestions, right?

Just like we are constantly retraining ourselves so that we ourselves don’t become staledated, we need to be reviewing fresh information and making realistic assessments of the business community’s future and our own financial future and well-being.  Not an easy task these days to say the least.

I also want to really stress that we need to get manufacturing back in the United States and get it going.  If you are still reading this and want some more ranting, I also think we need to get more natural resournces and start storing them here because China certainly is going after raw materials and storing them.

Here in California they have opened up for the immediate future some offshore drilling again or at least that is proposed as of the California State Assembly and their plans to balance the budget.  I am for it and sorry if people’s views of the ocean is going to look a little blotchy but we need to get things going.  Also, more money for solar initiatives would be appreciated.

Kudos to the companies that are working to get things solar powered in climates that support the heat.  For the places with wind, I think despite some people’s protests that it isn’t energy efficient I think it is a great way to start taking some of the energy pain off of fossil fuels and our reliance on things that may be harder to get in the future.  For now and the immediate future, the sun and wind are freely available.

Best of luck to all of us and keep the posts coming.  I am still working on my next book and I have some other plans for subsequent tomes.  Anything you want me to write about?  Post me a note and please let me know.

July 22 2009

Also, please  don’t quite go anywhere yet.  Having some tax issues or tax questions?  Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed?  Please read on.

I am expanding  my practice and taking on new tax clients.  If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.

I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.

I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Market Strategies Jul 22 2009 and Create More Jobs

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Unemployment Must Be at 20 Percent

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!  Here is hoping that you have a great day.  While you are having that great day, take note of some of my observations to think about over dinner later on or maybe after the rest of the family has settled down to video games and television.  I hate to be the sober driver in our little alcoholic binge called life but I figure somebody should touch on what is going on around us.  Let me know your thoughts by posts and links afterwards, will ya?

Based on what I am reading and from what I am seeing, I think that I may have been close to the mark in some of my previous entries here and here.  When I read that places like Detroit are without national chain stores that tells me that at a very high level business doesn’t want to open anything up in areas where they feel there isn’t any money.

The only way that the large chain stores can make their nut to cover their rent or mortgage payments  on their stores is to have regular customers who can come in daily.  That is certainly the case with grocery stores where the perishables (milk, bread, eggs, meat, etc) spoil after a few days despite the best efforts at refrigeration and other shelf items just collect dust and cobwebs.  That isn’t a good way to make money.  It is poor business and I wouldn’t invest in places like that.  With people out of work and despite unemployment supposedly slowing, unless people are at a full time job, they aren’t going to have the income stream to support living.  Sure they still will be eating but they will look for better bargains than some of the stores can provide.

Failing that, people without money resort to five finger discount.  Let’s face it, if people are hungry, they will do what they can to eat.  One hopes that people can take the high ground but when people are starving, social norms go out the window.

I have no idea the exact criteria that is being used because you and I both know that statistics can be used to represent anything that people want.  One needs to understand the underlying information and who gains when numbers are changed.  Welp, it certainly would look really depressing if the numbers showed we were at 20 percent unemployment and based on what I saw during tax season and talking to friends and relatives, it is hard to find people who haven’t been hit by the Depression.

I seriously don’t see how any kind of recovery is going to take place until we get back to full employment.  Interest rates can’t go up because that will clobber the remaining eighty percent of the people who are trying to hang on to what they are doing right now.

Pundits are saying that a year from now we will have nationally 10 percent unemployment and here in California 12 percent.  I submit to you now that we are at 20 percent realistically.  I base this on the fact that at least regionally, there is one house on every block that is for sale.  There are tons of apartments for rent and people just aren’t moving here in droves any more.

A lot of people from Mexico and South America have either started moving back home or migrating to other states or nations.  I don’t see the bevy of workers all around looking for day labor like I use to.  Times must be tough. 

What can you do to make money from this?  People are looking to save money and will pay a little money if it ends up saving them or making them a lot.  Yes, everybody expects something for free but the saner people out there realize that if everything is for free, that means that their worth dwindles from $25 an hour to free just as well.  It is tough to feed a family of four or six on free.

Do what you can to get manufacturing started in this country as well.  Manufacturing is great because it is something solid that can’t be taken elsewhere easily.  It might be undercut in cost to be made but if you are savy enough to be in business there are other things that you might be able to market with this stuff (like killer service).

I’ve talked about the spiral of money and we really need people to be working so they can spend money to keep things spinning.  We need people to save money too and if their income is halfed or gone altogether, all bets are off as to what is going to happen.

Please keep the emails and letters going to our representatives and if you are in business, thank you for doing what you can to keep people employed.  If you are out of work, keep looking and think about what you can do to make money from this current environment.

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime. Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Unemployment Must Be at 20 Percent

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Unemployment Looks Greater Than 12 Percent

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Question from a reader:”What is the real unemployment rate?  It sure looks like it is closer to 50% instead of 12%.”

My answer is that it depends where you live.  If you are living in a town where your entire industry was devoted to a delivery industry like DHL and you were a company town, the unemployment rate is probably frighteningly close to 75-90%.  Some small towns where everybody is self employed and relatively self sufficient may be only at 5%.

Judging from the tax returns that I did this year it looks like the unemployment rate may be something like 30-50% and that would explain locally here in Southern California why things are so bad.  I can’t speak for other parts of the country but I suspect things are bad all over.

The question is in terms of degree.

The solution, even if you believe that 80% of America is still employed is to still get jobs created and moving all over.  In order for people to spend money they need money.  They need it in the form of income and not always in the form of credit (which has gotten a lot of people in trouble in the first place).

Remember too that people roll on and off the unemployment roster and it is tough to get a true number until after the fact – generally a month or two later after all the statisitcs are completely accumulated.

Bottom line is to write our President and Congressional representatives and get more companies hiring.   Honestly, once the earnings come in and people get comfortable with “less” losses and start investing, I am hoping that hiring will open up.  There are a lot of people out there and unemployment benefits eventually will dry up and generally aren’t enough for people and their families to live on.

Good luck to all of us.

April  25 2009

 

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post.  There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.  

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later. 

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Unemployment Looks Greater Than 12 Percent

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Dealing With Unemployment, Lay Offs and Depression

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

With 75000 jobs being laid off on Monday, more layoffs on the way, and no end in sight for lay offs in general, here is a reminder to check my blog entry, No Job.  Things are pretty grim for a lot of people and as a supplement to the post and information in my book, Practical Money Making (which deals with surviving a depression/Depression and making money), here are some more tips:

 

hardtimes

 

1.  Unemployment, though extended, may be in short supply if the government agencies run out of money, even for the short term.  Sure, the government eventually will do something to help but if you are hungry now and have a family now get your application going.  If you received any kind of severance package, you probably will have to blow through that before your unemployment kicks in.  That is the way that it works, at least in California.  I suspect other states have similar programs.

2.  Take stock of everything that you have.  If you are fortunate enough to have some savings, start looking at budgeting to make money last.  If you are living hand-to-mouth and were getting by paycheck-to-paycheck you need to start thinking of other jobs you can do and maybe at a lower salary.  It isn’t pretty.  I have gone through something similar and it is just a sign of the times.  It is the destruction of supply that I’ve talked about (others as well) and companies, unsure of the future, are trying to be lean and mean.  You need to adapt a similar position if you are to survive for the next few days, months, weeks and years.  I am making it.  You can and you will, too.

 3.   You will be in a depression in a Depression.  Don’t do anything irrational.  You will make it through this.  There have been accounts of people killing themselves etc and just remember it is only money.  There have been stories where supervisors who were clueless encouraged employees to take their own lives as they were about to be laid off and that is totally irresponsible.  I’ve had some punks try to post something on my blog at times and I have blistered some of them a new place to evacuate themselves with and others I have ignored.  Ignore all the bad energy.

Seriously, ignore people’s bad energy.  You need to look after yourself and your family.  Start looking at trying to raise vegetables, food, etc at home.  Living in the Rust Belt and is it too cold?  Hydroponic gardening inside an option?  Worse case, think about moving, even temporarily to warmer climates.

Think about going multi-family in dwellings.  If you have the space for the short term and can handle the psychological ill-effects of crowding, move in with friends and relatives.  Try not to make it for a long time but if you need to do it, do what you have to do.

Talk to counselors, therapists, free socal help groups, – anything that can help you psychologically make it through this lousy time.  Start thinking about what you will do differently to protect yourself when you get out of the situation that you are in.  You will get out of it.  It may not happen over night but you will get out of it and thing will get better.

May you be at peace, be happy, get wealthier, and have wisdom.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my other books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale. If you like poker, Heroes (the TV series), comic books, Watchmen, etc, there may be some fast links to get you to what you are looking for.  Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax”?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!

 If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book listed above in the link.  Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

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