What I Would Do About the Federal Debt Now

First of all I agree budget reduction needs to be in the trillions and not millions. At this point I'd be ready to accept Paul Ryan's proposal for streamlining the budget and medicare. It's severe but Tim Pawlenty's plan is worse. I still think Ryan's plan is kind of a bargain with the devil saying older repipients won't have their medicare coverage messed with. I figure if we ever get on our feet in some future decade we can always modify the bill then. If you want to scrap student loans and school milk programs or other "descretionary" humanitarian programs, fine. But I'd work on the revenue side, too. If a bread winner of a family loses his job, he spends all day trying to find new work to RAISE revenue. I think there are all sorts of corporate perks and subsedies such as corn for ethanol subsedies, that are completely wasteful. Perhaps the government could open oil reserves for leasing out to drillers. But I sure wouldn't give the leases away. I'd make them pay top dollar for the privelege. And I would end oil depletion allowences and also end all of these "zero tax bills" for giant corporations. I think I would set up some sort of minimum tax floor for corporations I still believe we should let the Bush tax cuts expire. Actually I'd like to junk the whole tax package of last December, but I'm willing to give a little on this issue Also I think we can agree that the prescription drug bill passed under Bush was a boondoggle for the drug and insurance companies. I also we should give a long thought to just how many foreign wars we want to be involved in. We're fighting three wars now, with more possible theaters of action on the horizon like the Congo or Sudan. We have to draw the line. For every day we "cut it short" in a battlefield, we save that much in medical and rehabilitation costs, which are huge now. After all men just don't "die" any more like the good old days. I'd also put in a one percent stock trading tax to cut way down on computer trades. As time passes we can eventually reduce this as the danger passes but I'd leave it at a quarter percent.

There is the usual continued political wrangling. Now they are editing Wickipedia to say that John Quincy Adams was a founding father who also fought in the Civil War to end slavery. I hope someone has locked down these history pages. Yes, Michelle Bachman’s fans are responsible for leading the charge here. The march of enforced ignorance goes on. I think we can all agree from this event and remarks I made in the previous posting that Michelle Bachman has pretty much checked out of reality. They say that when she lived as a youth in Iowa she was a liberal, and that she actually campaigned for Jimmy Carter. That’s funny, because I didn’t vote for Jimmy Carter – either time, and therefore can be held accountable for none of the blame of his failures. But then when she moved to Minisota she got in with the wrong crowd. Some rightward shifts are relatively recent. They say that Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty both used to be “green” on ecology issues. Obviously the Koch brothers pollit beauro had to step in and remedy that. Sarah Palin is playing this came of “chase me around” and catch me if you can. Maybe we’ll just give her the nickname of “Frosty” you know- - to go with the Alaska cold weather. Now they say that Sarah Palin will make a comeback in 2016 because the next four years will be so bad economically the Republicans will be bold enough to run her. And she will face off with Hillary Clinton, who will by then have been elected Vice President this year, because she and Joe Byden will swap jobs. I don't believe Hillary wants the V P one bit, but I just thought I'd pass it along. And now we have President Obama trying to negotiate with the Senate and House republicans trying to get a budget through. But as I have stated in a previous posting President Obama apparently has nothing to worry about. He can say to these Republicans, “Go ahead - - Make My Day!” If he stands for at least a few of his principles and a budget passes he can save face. But if the worst happens he’s the executive officer, and he can determine what bills will be paid and what money geta allocated to whom. He can go “If you don’t give me everything I want on this matter somebody is gona get hurt”. Hey, that’s not a threat. After all, he didn’t way who!

Well, some people like Thom Hartman can see the dark side of even a positive issue. We are told that since Obama took office that exports to China are way up. Hartman says this is due to the economic standard in China going up and the people having more money to spend. But he warns in dire fashion that "soon our positions may be reversed and they become the consumers and we become the workers at bare bones wages". Well you know something? I wouldn't be in any mad rush to raise the minimum wage just now. Let's see how things play out. I believe that as our economy improves that market forces and the jobs market will dictate that employers pay more per hour for their workers. We are told Henry Ford paid his workers five dollars a day so they could afford to buy the cars they produce. Ford saw the economic value in "putting money in circulation" with his own "economic stimulus package". So now isn't it kind of strange that today Henry Ford is the benevolent socialist and the Communist Red Chinese are the corporate pigs. I think people are getting used to the new "normal" for their standard of living. In some perverse may it may help our economy with things like exports. So far we haven't had riots in the streets or anything. At this point in Ronald Reagan's administration of June 1973 unemployment was at 10.0% I kid you not. But Ronnie knew how to dish out the bullshit, and blame other people besides him for their present difficulties.

I guess it was Stevie Ray Vaughn who had the song "Love-struck Fool". Well Elvis Di Mira certainly qualifies as that. He is debating whether to tell this light of his life his dark secrets, or at least some of them on the principle that if you love someone you're honest with them. Unfortunately for Di Mira, he's in such deep doo-doo it's up past his knees already, and rising. I can see telling a half truth such as "Yes I admit that Raphael Hernandez murdered your mother by pushing her down the stairs and them suffficating her with a pillow in the hospital room and stealing her cameo. But somehow I feel guilty about this whole tradgety. And if I had only been a little more vigilent and protective of my ex wife, Samantha, he would have never have gotten mixed up in our lives, and you can bet he is going to pay for what he did. Me and Stephano were just discussing this topic today". Of course this is a whopper of a half truth but at least from her point of view she "got him to admit the truth" and so she will feel so much better about him for "coming clean and being honest". But as for telling her the whole truth, I'm not even sure Dr. Phil would agree with doing that at this point. Dr. Phil might say, "You know I have a .38 revolver on the top shelf of my closet I'm not using. Perhaps if I accidentally left it out and you just happened to pick it up by mistake and all- - and the next morning you were discovered dead in the mansion - - well, nobody would be any the wiser. After face it Elvis, your life isn't worth a plug nickle anyhow and all this shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later so why not just have a descrete, quiet exit."

Here’s a geometric brain teaser that shows how we approach everything with as it were “cultural” and geometric bias. And not to be too blunt but the more bias you have the more mysterious this paragraph will sound. I was thinking about the idea of “circumnavigating the universe” and wondering “which way would you go around”? Take a basketball with no markings on it. Draw a horizontal line across the middle. Now draw a 90 degree intersecting line going to the “north pole” and going all away around the ball back to the starting point. How look at the ball and from the left side draw another 90 degree intersecting line all the way up to the “north pole” and down the east side and completely around to starting point. These are not only the ONLY THREE ninety degree lines you will draw but also the only LINES that are even STRAIGHT, at least to the eye. Think about this for a minute. You will now draw eight more all as to some degree or another are cockeyed and bend and zig zag across the equator - - twice, in fact and return to starting point across the broadest path along the ball they can take from their starting point. Each of the eight lines will intersect with its partner on the far side of the ball. OK for the original three lines you drew look at the six intersection points the lines make. Now highlight these points in your mind. Now make the ball disappear and just see the points. Now in your mind take lines and connect all of the six points and when you are done you will have eight equallatteral triangles of the same size. Now draw a dot at the exact center of all eight triangles. This will further divide these eight triangles into 24 triangles along the ball of equal size and shape. (but they won’t be equallateeral, only the big ones will) Now draw lines from all eight dots to the center of the ball and project the lines outward from the surface a little. Now, reform the spherical shape of the ball in your mind and see where the eight points are. Now at these points draw two intersecting lines at ninety degree angles that go all the way around the ball. Do this with all the dots and note that each pair of lines intersects at a dot on the other side. These lines should be so drawn so that they divide the areas up into as similar sized segments as possible, that is WHEN YOU’RE ALL DONE. So you have to anticipate and leave open areas. After you have drawn all eight additional lines, twirl the ball around a little and bounce it around and hand it off to a friend and let him examine the ball. If you did it right, HE should not be able to tell which are the “Straight lines” and which are the curved, zig-zag lines. This is because your friend does not have YOUR refrence of geometric bias. I didn’t get this example out of any book. I just thought it up this morning.