Are You Ready for a Federal Online Shopping Tax?

Willie Sutton famously said he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." In a similar vein, cash-strapped state and federal lawmakers are looking to raise funds wherever they can, which invariably leads them to online shopping, one of the fastest growing industries in an otherwise tepid economy.

But now, New York and several other states are looking to get their cut of the e-commerce pie by collecting sales tax on all internet purchases and transactions.

Amazon, like my co-host Jeff Macke, thinks this is not such a great idea. As a result, the Seattle company run by billionaire Jeff Bezos has hired a powerful lawyer to make its case court.

But like most issues, especially those emanating from Washington or the capitals of large states, the matter is complicated.

According to the latest Commerce Department data, internet sales increased by 18.4% in the second quarter, while traditional retail sales rose by just 4.7%. Even so, on-line shopping still accounts for only about 5% of total retail sales, or $65 billion out of $1.12 trillion. Read more >>

Key to climbing out of poverty: Location

And now there is new research, published this week, showing that when it comes to the chances that a poor child born in America can climb up from the lowest rungs on the economic ladder, where that child lives may be more telling than previously thought. The researchers started by looking narrowly at questions of tax policy for poor parents, when they discovered something surprising but unmistakable in their data.

“Location matters, place matters,” says Nathaniel  Hendren, a Harvard professor and one of the authors of the study. When it comes to a low-income child having a chance to climb up the economic ladder, “it matters where you grow up.”

That climb, the study shows, happens most commonly in the Northeast and the West, along with parts of the upper Midwest and much of Texas. New York, Boston, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Houston give a poor child a decent fighting chance. (In the map below, lighter colors indicate higher mobility; darker colors indicate lower mobility).

The odds of children from poor families moving into the middle class are significantly lower in the Southeast and industrial Midwest. Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, and Columbus are some of the metropolitan areas where upward mobility seems to be seriously limited. Read more >>

Marijuana and the ultimate showdown with feds

First came marijuana as medicine. Now comes legal pot for the people. Those who have argued for decades that legalizing and taxing weed would be better than a costly, failed U.S. drug war have their chance to prove it, as Colorado and Washington became the first states to allow pot for recreational use.

While the measures earned support from broad swaths of the electorate in both states Tuesday, they are likely to face resistance from federal drug warriors. As of Wednesday, authorities did not say whether they would challenge the new laws.

Pot advocates say a fight is exactly what they want. "I think we are at a tipping point on marijuana policy," said Brian Vicente, co-author of Colorado's marijuana measure. "We are going to see whether marijuana prohibition survives, or whether we should try a new and more sensible approach."

Soon after the measures passed, cheering people poured out of bars in Denver, the tangy scent of pot filling the air, and others in Seattle lit up in celebration.

Authorities in Colorado, however, urged caution. "Federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly," said Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who opposed the measure.

As the initial celebration dies down and the process to implement the laws progresses over the next year, other states and countries will be watching to see if the measures can both help reduce money going to drug cartels and raise it for governments. Read more >>

TSA Harasses Dying Michigan woman on her last trip to Hawaii

A Michigan woman dying of leukemia says she hopes her embarrassment during a Seattle airport security pat-down might change the way the Transportation Security Administration treats travelers with medical conditions.

A TSA spokeswoman said late Tuesday, however, that the agency had reviewed video from the security checkpoint where Michelle Dunaj was screened for weapons and determined that the agency's procedures were followed. Dunaj, 34, was making what she expects will be the last trip of her life on Oct. 2 as she traveled through Seattle en route to Hawaii.

The Roseville, Mich., woman thought she had prepared by calling the airline ahead of time, asking for a wheelchair, carrying documentation for her feeding tubes and making sure she had prescriptions for all her medications, including five bags of saline solution.

But Dunaj said she received a full pat-down in the security line at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and had to lift her shirt and pull back bandages so agents could get a good look. She said everyone else in line got a look, too. Read more >>

FBI raiding houses of anti-Wall Street protesters

A US newspaper has revealed that the FBI has been raiding the houses of anti-Wall Street protesters in Oregon and Washington in what the agency describes an “ongoing violent crime investigation.” The Oregonian newspaper reported that heavily-armed domestic terrorism units of the FBI have been raiding the homes of activists in Seattle and Olympia, Washington and Portland, Oregon over the last month.

The report said that at least six homes have been raided in the two states since July 10. The FBI has described the raids as part of an ongoing violent crime investigation, linked to last year’s Occupy May Day protests, during which a number of minor acts of vandalism allegedly took place.

In one of the raids, eyewitnesses reported as many as 80 agents in body armor, wearing military fatigues, and armed with assault rifles participated in the raid. “I just heard lots of pounding at 6 o'clock, and I got up and I saw the whole thing," said one of the eyewitnesses, adding, "I saw them screaming to get in. They were using the battering ram, and then finally the door just opened.”

FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele told the newspaper, “The warrants are sealed… and I anticipate they will remain sealed.” Read more >>

Seattle Occupy group drops $5,000 from hotel to protest money in politics

 Adam Gabbatt  
Guardian.co.uk
Occupy protesters in Seattle marked the Fourth of July by throwing $5,000 out of a hotel window in a protest against the influence of money in politics. MicCheckWallStreet, an offshoot of the Occupy movement, staged the demonstration at 5pm.

The group's website declared that it is "time we declared independence from Citizens United" – citing the supreme court case which effectively ruled that corporations can make political contributions. A video posted to YouTube shows two people tossing the cash – which MicCheckWallStreet said was in $1 and $5 bills – out of a window above downtown Seattle. The group had signalled its intentions on its website, asking for donations to a wepay.com account.

High levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater

Image via WikipediaA Seattle nuclear watchdog group is accusing the federal government of failing to keep the public informed of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In the days following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the U.S. began monitoring radiation from Japan's leaking nuclear power plants.

Most of the public attention went to the air monitoring which showed little or no radiation coming our way. But things were different on the rain water side.

"The level that was detected on March 24 was 41 times the drinking water standard," said Gerry Pollet from Heart of America Northwest. He reviewed Iodine 131 numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency last spring. More...

Man jailed for cashing Chase check at Chase Bank - loses car and job

Image via WikipediaBy Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story
A 28-year-old construction worker was mistakenly thrown in jail after trying to deposit a check at a local Chase bank, and the whole ordeal ended up costing him his car and job.

KING5 reported that Ikenna Njoku of Auburn, Washington received a home buyer rebate from the IRS, which Chase Bank sent him in the form of a $8,463.21 cashier's check. When he tried to cash the check, a teller at his local Chase Bank suspected it was a forgery and took it, along with his driver license and credit card, to contact bank support.

When he arrived at the bank the next day to get his money, he was arrested for trying to cash a fraudulent check and thrown in jail.

The following day, on Friday, Chase Special Investigations realized the mistake and left a message with the police department. But Njoku ended up staying in jail until Monday morning.

In the meantime, he was fired from his job for failing to show up to work and his car had been towed from the bank's parking lot and was later sold at an auction.

A year after the incident, Chase has yet to apologize to Njoku.

“It’s one thing to make a mistake,” Felix Luna, a Seattle attorney who offered to help Njoku, said. “It’s one thing to make multiple errors of judgment like Chase has made and then, once you realize that your error has caused such harm to somebody else, to just ignore it for a year. I think he deserved better. I think all their customers do.”

‘Underwater’ Homeowners Rise to 28 Percent

More than 28 percent of U.S. homeowners owed more than their properties were worth in the first quarter as values fell the most since 2008, Zillow Inc. said today.

Homeowners with negative equity increased from 22 percent a year earlier as home prices slumped 8.2 percent over the past 12 months, the Seattle-based company said. About 27 percent of homes were “underwater” in the fourth quarter, according to Zillow, which runs a website with property-value estimates and real-estate listings.

Home prices fell 3 percent in the first quarter and will drop as much as 9 percent this year as foreclosures spread and unemployment remains high, Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said. Prices won’t find a floor until 2012, he said.

“We get tired of telling such a grim story, but unfortunately this is the story that needs to be told,” Humphries said in a telephone interview. “Demand is still quite anemic due to unemployment and the fact that home values are still falling. And that tends to make people more cautious about buying.” More...

Barter Exchange Services Skyrocket

As congress, the Obama people, and the financial elite continue their green shoot charade, aided by mainstream media whores who serve as nothing but stenographers for those in power, a subculture is forming across America in preparation for what most people know is already upon us: a protracted depression. In a world where cash is king, business owners have turned to barter exchange services to preserve cash. The U.S. currently boasts some 500 barter exchanges, up from about 40 in 1980, according to CNN's Justin Martin, and that's the official count; many businesses barter informally to avoid the IRS.

Martin writes about Christian Kar, the founder of Silver Cup Coffee, a company with 16 employees that make high-end espresso machines and custom coffee blends. "In recent months," writes Martin, "Kar has bartered for Web site design, a walk-in freezer, a phone system, vehicle maintenance, plumbing, catering for a company holiday party and a parking lot paint job. Kar estimates that 5% of his company's expenses are covered through barter.

"Tina Ames owns the Craftsmen Cafe, a Clarence, N.Y. eatery that specializes in organic comfort fare such as chicken soup and apple pie. Recently she needed to replace her restaurant's roof, a $7,000 job. Ames was loath to part with that much cash and didn't want to take out a loan. Her solution? She cut a deal with a local contractor who handled the roofing job in exchange for a Ford F-150 pickup that Ames no longer needed."

"I grew up on a farm," she says. "If you had eggs and someone else had corn, you traded. It's an old way of doing things, and it makes a lot of sense."

It's an old way of doing things that's about to become new again, new and permanent. The depth and length of Depression 2.0 will be the most severe depression in history. When the unemployment benefits run out for great swaths across America, who will they turn to when bankrupt states slash welfare and food stamp programs? As our global economy comes to a full stop, trade will begin to flourish in local communities out of necessity. An unemployed carpenter will barter for fresh eggs or produce from a local farmer in exchange for a new chicken coop. We will all be forced to depend more on ourselves and our abilities -- it's a good thing.