I’ve been laughing at all the silliness again.

You’ve heard all the blather about taxing the rich. Ladies and gentlemen, if we taxed the hated 1 percent at 100 percent, and took all of their income, it would still not be enough to pay off the debt we find ourselves with!

Give me a break. I also laugh at some of my friends from across the aisle. “We should not continue the Bush tax cuts.”

OK let’s not. I’m not taking a political stand I am just passing along reality. Guess who suffers if we let the cuts expire? The lowest income Americans, that’s who.

Right now the lowest tax bracket is 10 percent. If the Bush cuts expire those taxes go to 15 percent in 2013. Boys and girls that is a 50 percent increase in taxes for the lowest earners!

How about the next bracket at 15 percent? According to DJC the CPA, this bracket may be where many people in retirement and lower paid workers fall.

Their taxes rise from 15 percent to 20 percent, which is a 33 percent rise in taxes!

So those railing to let the Bush cuts expire may be hurting our citizens who can least afford it! What many people also don’t want to mention is that many deductions also go away.

OK, so how do the largest wage earners make out if the Bush breaks are allowed to expire? Right now the high bracket is 35 percent. Assuming the breaks expire, the rate goes to 39.6 percent. That is an increase of 13 percent.

OK, so we raise the lowest earners taxes by 50 percent and we raise the highest earners by 13 percent. Makes sense, huh? All of this stuff also affects investments of course.

Long-term gains would go from 15 percent to 20 percent. There are some caveats in there so I am being very general. The possible reality is that Congress could come to some sort of, gasp, compromise.

Overall, I think taxes will go up. I don’t know what else can happen.

I’m not in the top 1 percent of earners, and likewise I’m not in the 10 percent tax bracket, but I could pay some more taxes without yelling too much. I happen to like living in America. If I need more money, I’ll just work some more. That’s what most of us do.

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OK, here we are in October, the rock and roll month. My friends at Bespoke Investment Group say that over the last 20 years, October has seen the Dow gain an average of 1.75 percent with positive results 70 percent of the time. With all the recent short-term positive market performance it will be interesting to watch October. By the way, November and April are normally the best months for the market.

Easy results to report for the year to date as I write this on Oct. 2, the broad market as represented by the Wilshire 5000 is up over 16 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which contains only 30 stocks, is up 10.6 percent. The NASDAQ is roaring ahead 19.5 percent. The Standard and Poor’s 500 is up 14.9 percent.

I’m pretty happy about all of this. Investors need to make some money. I’m not happy about the foreign markets.

Worries about some countries’ economies and problems with the Euro are still causing some nervousness. The foreign markets continue to lag the U.S. The Dow Jones Global Index, not including the U.S., is up 8.6 percent.

Don’t get me wrong, with a full quarter left to go in the year, that number in and of itself is not bad. Historically, foreign markets, because they just normally grow faster, do much better than ours. We shall see how this all plays out. Germany is leading the way up more than 24 percent with India close behind at almost 22 percent.

Gold is up 13.7 percent but silver is trouncing it up more than 25 percent. Wheat and soybeans are both up over 30 percent and that cannot be helping you and me.

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The wife comes into the man cave the other day to see what I was up to. She could see I was looking at the credit card bill. She asked, “How does it look?”

I told her the reality was our credit card was stolen last month. “Why didn’t you report it?” she yelled.

I told her that I wasn’t really unhappy, the thief was spending less than she spends.

For some reason she doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg client portfolio manager.