Tag Archives: economics

MIND THE PENNIES

Economics, Education, Homespun philosophy, Politics, , , , , ,

. . . AND THE DOLLARS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. Folk Saying

Do you still pick coins up off the ground? Do you have a savings jar of some sort? Do you remember a time when people were taught that thrift is a virtue? Do your children and grandchildren have piggy-banks and savings accounts?

Having asked these questions I admit the biggest question I hear whispering in my ear is: “What possible difference does it make anymore?” (Shades of Hillary Clinton!) As the putative president of the United States, and his wife, run around the world spending money not their own, one has to ask why any of the rest of us should even “save” a single cent again.

When hosts of citizens don’t understand how the tax system works, or doesn’t work; how they think “drastic cuts” to the rate of growth are actual cuts and don’t know that the government shut down was all contrived; why we need “zero based budgeting” and a Balanced Budget Amendment, even the hardiest souls might quake at how to teach so foreign a concept as “real” government savings. But let’s begin with what that quaint Constitution says on the matter:

Section 7: “ALL BILLS FOR RAISING REVENUE SHALL ORIGINATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . . .”

This means that the House of Representatives holds the purse strings and is charged with submitting a budget for each fiscal year, and there is a debt ceiling which is, supposedly, not to be exceeded. The budget proposed by the House is sent to the Senate where that body adds its demands for funding, then the budget goes before a joint conference committee for resolution. Both Houses vote on the finished product and once it is passed they forward it to the President for veto or signature. At least that’s how things are SUPPOSED to work.

In reality the budget forwarded by the House is loaded with pork barrel spending by the Senate and by both Houses during reconciliation. Thus the politicians can reward themselves and their cronies, and powerful voting blocs in each state get more funding for their pet projects. The longer members of Congress serve, the more powerful they become and the more pork they bring home, keeping their constituents happy and voting for them. So they keep playing the same old game, year after year.

Other methods of increased spending include raising the debt ceiling, supplemental spending resolutions and adding a desired unfunded program or project and cost as a rider on a completely unrelated bill. (Didn’t the Senate promise not to do that anymore? Have they kept their word?) Everyone turns a blind eye to such shenanigans, and yet again the taxpayers are looted.

The President usually also presents a budget, making clear where his priorities lie. This President’s budgets have been rejected every year since he took office. NO ONE IN EITHER PARTY HAS EVER VOTED FOR HIS BUDGETS. Under this President the game has changed and there is a method to his madness. He prefers to have no limits on his power and with the budget and the budget makers under his thumb, he manages to unconstitutionally keep spending. That means that every time we reach the debt ceiling another battle erupts. And the cowards in the House of Representatives never have the courage to close the purse.

The passing of the fiscal budget is a CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT, so both Houses appear to have evaded their duties. However, the House has regularly forwarded budgets to the Senate where ONE MAN, the odious Senate President, Harry Reid, pronounced them DOA. Did he then negotiate with the House or attempt to resolve the issue? Not Slimy Harry. He threw the budget someplace (a drawer, a garbage can? Who knows?).

Now that a budget deal of some sort has been brokered, Congress can pretend to follow it while everyone happily keeps spending, and the government faces a trillion dollar addition to the “debt ceiling” to allow even more spending. The supposed “cuts” of course are way down the road. As the old children’s song says, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.”

And so, with no budgetary restraints, the Senate President and the President of the United States have proceeded to rape the Treasury and the citizens of this country, and each year increase their power exponentially. After all, what’s a few trillion between thieves? They now think they are so powerful there’s nothing that can be done to stop them and they can take whatever they want. You can always tell who the bad guys are. . . They are the ones who don’t care what happens to ANYONE but themselves and THEY DON’T CARE IF YOU KNOW IT.

Now we can go on to the next manufactured crises. Is it immigration reform or the minimum wage this week? Both plus Racism? War on Women? Or was that last week?

There are words, dishonorable, oath breakers, liars and sinners come to mind, for those who have no conscience. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear have many times been shown President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid and the House leadership for who and what they truly are. Hypocrites, every darn one of them.

Once again we as a nation are faced with the cowardice and lies of the political class and almost everyone connected with it. Is it even possible to recognize any semblance of truth coming out of Washington, D. C. or from the fools who pass themselves off as the brightest amongst us?

Obviously impeachment should be seriously considered for the president and Reid. But no one will do it. The court eunuch Boehner needs to face his own devil – himself. He needs to be put out to pasture post haste. The man can’t even find his way to state the facts which support his case and hates anyone who can. He seems to have totally forgotten the most important job of the House of Representatives, that of saving the nation from insolvency, and he seems to have even forgotten his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.

John Boehner, you choose dishonor a whole lot and you have now failed everyone. None can trust you again to keep your oath for anything. Anyone who follows your lead is also guilty and should suffer the same fate.

What a shame it is that so few men stand on principle. And so this nation is led by fools and simpletons. Statesmen and oath keepers need not apply.
If political leaders were anything resembling honest, they would admit they have ceased minding any amount of money, whether on behalf of the country or that used for their own greed, power or comfort:

If Congress minded the thousands, would the millions take care of themselves?
If Congress minded the millions, would the billions take care of themselves?
If Congress minded the billions would the United States still be well over seventeen trillion dollars in debt?

Now here we are, another billion or trillion dollars more in debt each time the president wields his pen. Add Obamacare to this mix and try to guess the debt ceiling next time. After all, what’s a few trillion among thieves?

We would do well to remember that if the devil had fingers, his prints would be all over the world, and since the devil is always in the details, that is where his fingerprints are to be found. Unfortunately we know whose fingerprints help make the devilish details, but no political or moral fortitude exists to stop the carnage.

GOVERNMENT GRAFT AND CORRUPTION.

Corruption, Economics, Politics, ,

KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF MY POCKETS.  Folk Saying

Do you remember the times in your life when you suddenly understood clearly what was going on? When your eyes opened and your ears heard and you could articulate enough to think everyone else would understand if they would just listen, but then no one did?

I was thinking about one of those times for me. It was a long time ago and one of the national TV stations was doing a report on taxation and how taxpayer funds are spent. The reporter is dead now, but I think it was Peter Jennings, the Canadian/U.S. Broadcaster who once also said that United States voters had thrown a giant tantrum when they elected Republicans after Newt Gingrich’s Contract for America caused a political earthquake.

His report detailed how much money was collected by the Government, how much was taken to run various programs, and how much went back to the states in revenue sharing. Jennings reported that 40 cents of every dollar stayed in Washington D.C. to fund the government. I’m not sure what that figure is today.

Seattle was then shown as a “typical” U.S. City and Jennings nattered on about the great things federal money had funded for the area, showing pictures of roads, bridges and buildings. Finally he, as I recall the amounts, concluded with the words, “How much money did the people of Seattle pay in taxes? $45 million dollars. And how much did they receive in revenue sharing for these projects? $45 million! So I would say the good people of Seattle got their money’s worth.”

If 40 percent of the $45 million paid in taxes stayed in D. C., that comes to $18 million that had to come out of a lot of somebody else’s pockets in order to pay for Seattle’s goodies. And Peter Jennings appeared not just to approve that, but seemed blissfully unaware that some little guy in Pioche, Nevada or Bangor, Maine might not find that such a good deal.

Is it just possible that a lot of money could be saved if the “middle men” were removed from the picture? If those funds did not get siphoned off in D.C.? If national taxes and programs were cut, and each city and state paid for their own programs and projects from local taxes? Let the arguments over paying for “Bridges to Nowhere” be conducted by the people who do or don’t need that service. Let the people who know them hold their local and state authorities accountable for their ideas and honesty. Wasn’t that the original intent of the rights retained by the states?

The fact that anything at all, both the program and the funding, can be added and passed as a rider on an unrelated bill is so disgusting we should all be outraged.

In one robs Peter to pay Paul, only Paul and his friends are happy.

ECONOMIC SURVIVAL IN AN ERA OF STUPIDITY

Economics, Politics, , , , ,

“IF THE DEVIL HAD FINGERS, HIS PRINTS WOULD BE ALL OVER THE WORLD.”  Anonymous

I keep hearing Speaker Boehner and Mr. Ryan touting their silly, disloyal and self-defeating Budget deal, and in my mind in the background I hear the Odious Harry Reid, Nancy (“embracing” her own “suck”) Pelosi, and the very juvenile Obama laughing all the way to where ever it is they think they are heading. I recently coined the term “complicitors” to cover such people as these, who try to destroy all of us out of a desire for power but who also destroy themselves out of sheer stupidity. I think with this “deal” we can add many names to the list of complicitors, some because they are fools and others because they have no backbone.

The Devil is always in the details, and that is where his fingerprints are to be found. It’s time for us to “find out what’s in the bill”, in part at least. All the “fingerprints” have not been seen yet.

1.   $85 Billion in Cuts, spread over ten years. It starts “down the road”, so don’t hold your breath.
2.    The Sequester is gone for now.  $63 Billion restored here. Doesn’t this leave just $22 Billion in supposed cuts? Remember that the “draconian” Sequester was the idea of Obama and was really just a reduction in the rate of INCREASE to the Budget. To have honesty in our budgets we must move to zero-based budgeting, and get a Balanced Budget Amendment.
3.   ObamaCare is NOT defunded. In fact it is funded for two years.
4.   Extension of Unemployment Benefits is Out. But only for now. First we have to see what the Senate does. Odious Harry Reid will tackle this.
5.   The Military Budget Is Increased. One can only hope.
6.   No Changes to Entitlements. We can always print more money. Right?

And the whole deal, by design, does not even address the Debt Ceiling. Undoubtedly many details are yet unseen and unanalyzed.

The Senate will now do the bidding of their Master, Harry Reid, and add, add and add again to the bill. And all the purported savings? Hey, those are W-A-Y W-A-Y down the road and are never meant to be real, so forget them. Mr. Ryan, you have been royally sucker-punched, along with everyone in the House who admired you enough to follow your lead. Perhaps the people who voted for you and those who wished you well will feel as though they got punched by a sucker.

Since it only happens in Fairy Tales, there is nothing like spinning straw into gold.

Whom do you name RUMPLESTILTSKIN?

GOVERNMENT SPENDING (and Barbarians) – YET AGAIN

Economics, Politics, , , , , , , ,

“Conservative groups . . . are ridiculous”  “. . .they are misleading their followers . . . I think they’ve lost all credibility.”  John Boehner (R), Speaker of the House
 
Here we are, over SEVENTEEN TRILLION  dollars in debt with more piling on every second of every day, idiots like Mr. Boehner in charge, lies and cowardice running rampant, and what are we to do? Send off yet another blast-fax? Is anyone at all even THINKING, let alone LISTENING?

When John Boehner can speak so crassly and stupidly of the Conservatives in his party, why should they support him in anything he attempts to do, even if it looks OK on the surface? What rocks and shoals await the unwary? I agree totally with defunding the Republican Party and have not given to them in years.

I, personally, am not a member of the Tea Party, but wish I were in a position to join and support them. I often think about the good things they do in standing up for the Constitution and that they are the adults in the room, toilet trained, respectful, sane, cleaning up after themselves, what more can we ask?

That Occupy Wall Street group, who seem to be in love with their bodily excretions (does this prove Freud’s anal phase?), especially in public places and smeared on cop’s cars; their disrespect for persons and property; their general filth and lack of thought, leave me with the proverbial “chill up the spine.”

Now we have ObamaCare tearing the nation apart while said Obama goes to South Africa and again reveals himself as not only a narcissist but a horny juvenile to boot, with no sense of proper behavior or decorum whatsoever. One can only hope his wife does read him the riot act and teach him some manners. I also hope the people of Denmark chastise their ostensible “leader” for her actions on such a supposedly solemn occasion.

The charming Nancy Pelosi (DEMOCRAT), House Minority Leader, has told the Democrats they’ll just have to “embrace the suck” over the budget deal and ObamaCare. What is that party thinking, having such a woman as one of their “leaders”? Are they really proud of her, or of themselves for that matter? Yuch!

The very people who should set the standards of morality and manners (at least) are the very ones who embarrass both themselves and their countries. The barbarians are not just at the gates, they are HERE.

It was Patrick Henry who said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
Lately I have begun to think that we are in the midst of those “times” again and there are few willing to confront our condition in any honest way.

Why Read the Bible?

Biblical Wisdom, Economics, Politics, , , ,

Seeing the Handwriting On The Wall – As told in Daniel, Chapter 5

People who never read the Bible miss a rich cultural heritage passed on and preserved for millennia. King Solomon correctly taught that “there is nothing new under the sun.” And yet each new generation arrogantly believes that they are the first ones to be in their circumstances or know truth. Because they reject historical biblical principles, many people no longer learn that liberty is an unalienable right that comes from God and in their ignorance sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Even today there are cultural differences that separate us from others. If an Australian Aborigine were suddenly transported to New York City and a New Yorker took his place in the Outback, which one would be most likely to survive? At least the Aborigine would know how to fight, could learn to raid garbage cans for food, and could sense danger, but what would a city boy alone know about how to orient himself by the stars, how to find food and water in the wild, or how to defend himself from wild animals?

In our hubris we have forgotten that people in the past also led full lives and had wisdom we can learn and receive guidance from. The Bible is one such source of practical lessons on life and recognizing what is important in human experience.

In the not too distant past even people who were not “religious” were somewhat literate in biblical knowledge. The writer Florence King wrote about having problems with Social Security. Finally she had an appointment with a supervisor and after once again explaining her problem the supervisor assured her she understood and the problem would be resolved. Miss King muttered, “I can see the handwriting on the wall already.” The supervisor looked at her blankly, then turned her chair around to look at the wall and said, “I don’t see any handwriting.”

Sometimes we don’t see “the handwriting on the wall” because we have never studied it enough to see its relevance to us.

In his book “After America: Get Ready For Armageddon”, Mark Steyn clarifies the story of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, and “the handwriting on the wall.”

Belshazzar had a feast for all his courtiers and brought out the gold and silver plates, utensils and goblets looted from the temple in Jerusalem and used them to drunkenly toast the gods of gold and silver worshiped by the Babylonians. In the midst of the feast a disembodied hand appeared and wrote the words, “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” on the wall. Belshazzar understood the words, but not why they suddenly were written during his big party.

No one ever explained to me what the words meant, I only knew the interpretation. Mr. Steyn explains that the words are names for units or weights of Babylonian currency, or as he says: half-dollar, half-dollar, penny and two bits.

Daniel the Jewish prophet was called in by the King to interpret the “handwriting on the wall.” The interpretation given to Belshazzar by Daniel is:

MENE: “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and hath finished it”.   TEKEL: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”  UPHARSIN: “Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”

Within a day Belshazzar was slain, and the Persians and Darius the Mede had taken over the kingdom.

I am grateful to Mr. Steyn for identifying what the words written on the wall actually mean and placing the story in the context of Belshazzar having wasted the resources of his kingdom, thereby destroying it. If we were to ponder just a little would this story have any relevance to our nation’s trillions, trillions, billions, and millions in debt?

Is anyone in Washington reading the “handwriting on the wall?”

BLING

Politics, ,

ALL THAT GLITTERS  IS NOT GOLD – – Folk Saying

I well remember the first time I found gold. We must have been in Yellowstone Park and I was playing at the edge of a river when I saw the shine of iron pyrite and knew I had found gold and would be able to enrich my family. I grabbed a few rocks and ran shouting to my father that we were rich. He and my mother laughed while they explained I had only found “Fool’s gold.” No sugar coating was ever allowed by my parents, their daughter was a FOOL and boy did my brothers help reinforce that idea.

It would be many years before I stayed at a working gold mine in Alaska and found out how much work is involved in mining. It takes a lot of strength, grit and character to draw forth gold from the ground, and it takes more grit and strength of character to draw gold from ourselves.

We live in an age of glittering people who pursue power, fame and fortune at any cost. That cost is high for so many as they plunge into the abyss of adulation and wealth and then into drugs, loneliness and despair. The ruin of so many young people is particularly sad.

What constitutes true gold in a life? Do we even look anymore, or do we prefer the glitter over the real?

A person whose judgment I absolutely trust often uses the term “he’s only from the teeth out” to describe people he doesn’t trust. He recently referred to Joe Biden that way and I had to laugh because it was such a true statement. Can’t you just see the flash of light from “old Joe’s” teeth while he makes a fool of himself?

Learning the wisdom of judging fairly among competing interests for our time, money and loyalty is a wearying task, but one we avoid at our peril.

Take time to really listen and think hard about what you hear. After you have contemplated all sides, try to make an informed decision, apply your intelligence to the matter, and if someone is telling you it’s a crisis and the need to act is urgent, to “pass the bill so we can find out what’s in it”, ask yourself how trustworthy such advice is and why they who disagree are demonized with such hatred. Why is the issue being forced and what is to be gained from creating such chaos? The old saw about “follow the money” (and who gains power) applies here.

The silly theatrics of this administration are such a give-away about bling over substance. How can the idiots who stand behind this president as props not be ashamed of themselves? Maybe they just crave their fifteen minutes of fame.

Harry Reid and his lies and false witness against Romney were sickening to behold and should have been repudiated by all honest souls. That Romney did not more vigorously defend himself still astounds me.

Truth should not be silenced by fear and we all seem to need a truth detector these days.

KILLING THE GOOSE

Politics, , ,

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.
Yogi Bera

Something has been bothering me for a long time, and my mind still cannot wrap itself around those who are complicit (can we make a new word “complicitors”?) in the destruction of their own country and think they will escape the fallout, even those at the very pinnacle of power. They knowingly kill the goose, freedom, that lays the golden egg but think THEY can keep the eggs coming. In theory they expect to keep THEIR wealth and things while taking from you and me, presumably because our contributions don’t matter. In practice, however, they, too, will lose all.

The Soviet leaders had a name for such followers, they were called “useful idiots”, and that name was not just for the little guys, but soon included some of those very leaders. I think it was Beria who went to his death weeping, not that he was to die, but afraid Stalin did not love him anymore. His final words were addressed to that effect. Who will weep this time when they are being tossed aside?

The people who close their eyes to lies and sidle up to power will all lose when the leaders finally turn on their own, but there are other sides to this story. What happens when a civilization falls? How long can technology last when there is no innovation or upkeep available?

Without question there will be chaos when a nation falls, but I have another scenario about such a future that I think is true. If you want to know what will happen and how people will live when a population declines, choose a time with a much lower population number and learn how people lived then. Within a very few generations that is the way you and your descendants will live. How do you keep computers going when there is no way to repair and service them? What happens to satellites and other forms of communication? Who keeps automobiles running and airplanes flying? Think about all the things we have simply because we have the population to sustain them.

Cellphones are a great example of technological innovation. The first “mobile” phones were cumbersome, unreliable, and expensive. They were mostly used in commercial operations. When they started being used by individuals, only the so called “rich” had them. Those people were very limited in their calling system. Now the phones are small, reliable and cheap. Everyone has them. A man who worked in Africa told me how shocking it was to be in the African “bush” and find that every native had a cellphone. How long do you think any cellphone system will survive a societal breakdown?

If you had to leave your home in an emergency, with electricity gone and enemies at the door, and you told your children to grab just the necessities so you could run, what would they take? Their IPhones and computers, or warm clothing, food and water? Would they even believe they were in danger?

Back to the “complicitors”, where oh where will they be? It won’t take long for their lights to go out, too. They are fighting against us by design and what they do to themselves is out of sheer stupidity.