Monthly Archives: November 2010

Drain Clogs – 11-30-2010

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More deficit insanity

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“I think there is an element of truth in the view that the superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times [is necessary]. Once it is debunked [that] takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. There must be discipline in the allocation of resources or you will have anarchistic chaos and inefficiency. And one of the functions of old fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that the long-run civilized life requires. We have taken away a belief in the intrinsic necessity of balancing the budget if not in every year, [then] in every short period of time. If Prime Minister Gladstone came back to life he would say ‘uh, oh what you have done’ and James Buchanan argues in those terms. I have to say that I see merit in that view.” -Paul Samuelson in Blaug, 1995 (Quoted here)

Another report has been released that’s also terrible and completely not worth reading.  Before I go over the first page of it though, recall that the “draft version” of the first report was released after the elections, but before the date it was due (Dec. 1st).

The second report is wrapped in the flag in the very first sentence:

America is the strongest, most prosperous, and most resilient nation in history.

Followed up with invoking the Yellow Peril:

With current policies in place, even when we recover from the recession, the debt will grow far larger than the economy itself, forcing the nation to borrow enormous and unprecedented sums of money, increasing our dependence on China and other foreign lenders, diminishing our living standards, raising risks of an economic crisis, and reducing America to a second-rate power.

Despite these kinds of claims, the report doesn’t include useful charts like these:

The Caribbean Banking Centers, Belgium-Luxembourg, and probably probably a lot of “other” are tax havens (for more on tax havens, see this, this, this and this).  Rather than addressing this, the latest deficit hysteria report recommends reducing corporate taxes so they can be more “competitive” by evading smaller amounts I guess.  Even if the deficit was reduced for some reason, it seems more likely that blatant criminals like these would only be further encouraged.

The bright side to this is that despite all of the scare mongering, people just aren’t buying it.  Failure tends to be disappointing, so I guess it’s not surprising that people who put so much work into this appear to be very upset:

We have published three books, the first in 2004 before most Americans could spell “deficit,” and many essays and editorials….So widely reported has this [Bowles-Simpson] plan been that it would be difficult to live anywhere in America and fail to hear, see, or read about the plan and the disastrous budget situation it is intended to address. Perhaps Americans are just beginning to get a deeper understanding of a very deep hole.

Here’s the big question now: After a host of unelected experts and former government officials have been sounding the alarm and issuing specific proposals for many years to close the deficit gap, are politicians ready to act? So far at the federal level, elected officials have done no more than claim that they are ready to do something, mostly by shouting that the jokers in the other party are the cause of the problem….But there is nothing that even pretends to be the “Republican Plan” or the “Democratic Plan,” or the “President’s Plan.” Why is it that scores if not hundreds of scholars, budget experts, and former officials have been diagnosing the deficit problem and proposing solutions while the political system has remained all but inert?

This failure of our political system and of individual politicians can have only one explanation: they are afraid of voters. In the end, it is the American people who are the true cause of the problem. They want their government to serve them in every imaginable way. Worse, they don’t want to pay for it. Nope. They are happy to let their children and grandchildren pick up the tab. With lame politicians and a greedy public watching the deficit grow completely out of control without taking action, a devastating insight emerges: only when the nation has suffered a major crisis that will impose a decade or more of misery on millions of Americans will the public actually support serious action. By then incalculable damage will have been done to our economy, our political system, and future generations of Americans. The Titanic is approaching the iceberg and despite all the yelling, no one has even started to turn the rudder.

This is why I mentioned the report being released after the election.   The contempt for ordinary Americans (who aren’t doing so well these days) is stunning. They also seem to have forgotten that their funding is also tax deductible.

Drain Clogs – 11-22-2010

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Almost immediately after skiplogic posted his article about Sarah Palin, two of Palin’s kids got into a giant Facebook fight where they threw gay slurs around like they just don’t care. Because they don’t. Kids will be dumb, but leave it to FreeRepublic.com to see their words as some sort of epic battle of freedom against teh gays!

The head of FoxNews is literally calling people Nazis.

War criminal Congressman Allen West will be a constant stream of crazy.

Bryan Fischer is a tool. But he wants you to know he’s a manly tool, unlike that female man Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta who got the Medal of Honor for bravely defending his fallen comrade. What a pussy, am I right?

The Teabaggers now direct their rage towards sustainable development! All these crazy people ranting against Agenda 21 means we have to add this to the #conspiracytheories category. Good job, loons! It’s sort of sad that we have a tag for that already…

Cartoon of the Day:

Who invented and created by Hitler?

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Who invented and created by Hitler?

A small unidentified non-commissioned officer of Germany becomes the leader of the German people, absurd, but my view is not always komapktno reading lots of articles, I read between the lines and I bring my court, all the rest are fairy tales for young children and the public, but let’s go in order to better understand the facts. I pray that we honestly answer several questions:
1st Who took the money and gold, three days before the “terrorist attack” on America?
2nd Who ordered the war against Saddam Hussein and if Saddam could attack America, absurd! But goals are achieved. Two birds with one stone!
He returned to the position of Head of Government, but welcomed him to another world
Defeat does not mean surrender. Back to the 10 Downing Street became his new obsession. Time magazine 1950th appointed him as a person first half of the 20th century.
President of the Royal Government again became the 1951st year. Memories of the Second World War, which started publishing the 1948th, became an absolute hit. Once he wrote a million words per year on average, the text that would meet about a dozen large books. Churchill has always known how to stay present and engaging the public and politics.
Nobel Prize for Literature won in 1953. year. Disappointment that it was not a prize for peace is not too long. Times have changed dramatically. United Kingdom, however, has never ceased to be an important European country, and global factors, but slipped to the throne, despite all the successes, failed to stop even a brilliant, courageous statesman.
Hitler, Churchill was defeated, but Europe is the world’s wars have done enough to stop being the world center. The real winners of the war were far away from the center of the fallen empire. They sat in the Moscow Kremlin and the White House in Washington.
Stanley Baldwin, president of the British government in his thirties, at a time when Winston Churchill was in the political wilderness, and many looked like the former, described him as a person whom the fairies at birth showered incredible gifts: ingenuity, value, eloquence, ability. Then a fairy, and she worried that no one should be so talented. Decided he was denied the ability of rational deliberation and wisdom. A man who enjoyed the power and the creation of history were the hardest years of age. Winston Churchill was omnipresent in the media, but misunderstood, and often contested. Better and faster than others to recognize what is happening in Europe.

Visit Germany

Very soon after the arrival of the National Socialists came to power in Germany, Churchill was fully recognized what a danger of Nazism. The parliament was thundered against Hitler, and warned against the development of events. Neville Chamberlain, president of the British government after the 1937th, in contrast to Winston, he thought Hitler was just an extreme nationalist. Millions of Germans living outside Germany. If the principle of self-determination understood literally, there are reasons for dissatisfaction. With the policy of appeasement of both sides – the Germans, and Eastern Europeans – certainly could not avoid a new European conflict, held in London.
After the German occupation of the Rhine area 1936th Churchill, who made his name synonymous with fighter against communism and the Soviet Union said that evil must stifle in the cradle, is now focused solely on stopping the Führer. Austria joining the signing of the Munich capitulation, which the Sudeten region 1938th devoted to Hitler, were a key step toward the Second World War.
Hitler was “determined to wipe Czechoslovakia off the map”, I said back in May 1938th year. Winston Churchill in the House of Commons British Parliament 5th listopada 1938th issued Prague assessed complete defeat the British. “Amid the disaster, we first order … All the countries of Central Europe and the Danube valley, one by one, will be drawn into a vast system of Nazi politics. I do not think that this is the end. This is just the beginning “, said lawmakers generally uninterested.

Collapse of the elections

Churchill’s attitude was, if not entirely alone, then certainly far from decisive. Opinion polls showed that 57 percent of Europeans approve the agreement. Only 37 percent of them voted against it. Hitler was, and was named Time’s Man of the Year, an honor that was before him had only FDR and Mahatma Gandhi. The question today is whether Chamberlain was buying time before all the abandoned offices of the armed forces on the island? Hope that the overthrow of Hitler in the meantime, the Germans’ conflicts existed, although they were weak. Would the Germans could do to stop that they decided to hit with force on the threshold? A year later, though still not particularly strong, the British military forces still significantly progressed.
Obviously, and I am torn by doubts, Churchill was in parliament congratulated Chamberlain reached the treaty with Hitler, probably not wanting to antagonize those who could call in the cabinet and the government. Winston Churchill may have seen further, but did not win the election. In his career had been previously the number of failures. For years Moscow has criticized the same words as now Hitler. Musollinijevu Italy for a while praised as an example of organized state. He has a reputation as too independent, and adventurer. Despite the fact that Hitler was constantly demonstrated that Churchill is right, even in the summer 1939th the vast majority of conservatives were against Winston entry into government. All the while it seemed that the policy of appeasement has hope for success, Winston Churchill was out of the cabinet.
“Lord Churchill was easily the best meet,” commented one of the most famous occasion, the daily habits of the British politician Lord Birkenhead. Although it is thought primarily to the best of whiskey and cognac, cigars, meals, expensive hotels and a life of pleasure, but not carnal, some have said that freedom was just part of the “best”, what Winston Churchill allowed to enjoy. Hitler and Nazi Germany began to threaten Britain’s most important value, and so Churchill habits.
Then Hitler intensified its policy and accelerated the change of government in London. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was first September 1939. at 10 o’clock in the morning, hours after the Wehrmacht units penetrated into Poland, invited the British ambassador in Warsaw to him said that the hostilities there. The same day, Chamberlain, Churchill was invited to talk on the day of publication of hostilities, Paris and London, Nazi Germany, 3 September, he was appointed first Lord of Admiralty, Minister of Maritime Affairs.
He immediately became visible, loud, but the advocates of peace and remains among the British any more. War of the largest European states was a “fake”. The French in the west had 90 divisions. The Germans only 20, poorly armed, virtually no heavy artillery and tanks. Nothing, however, did not happen. These is the “war” months, more Frenchmen killed in traffic, but in a battle with Germany. Hope was that the Third Reich, I still wish the west, to break the Maginotovoj line, the system of fortifications on the German-French border, and that will ensure British supremacy on the seas. Secured agreement from the east with the Soviets, Hitler now had time boost Wermacht. During this period doubled the number of tanks, half a million more Germans entered the armed forces.
Then on 9 travnja 1940th Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark. A day later invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The French rescue to help their neighbors, but in vain. Chamberlain was the same day the parliament has lost confidence and resigned. The cabinet called on Churchill and Lord Halifax, Foreign Minister. It was put together a coalition government, and it could take only one of them. Winston, never without comment, is now silent, deliberately creating an awkward silence. Everyone in political life, the majority in parliament, the royal couple, a former prime minister, and Halifax are still preferred, but not Churchill.

He slept like a baby

Foreign Minister then said he does not want responsibility. Halifax, who was called Holly Fox – The Holy Fox, was not a weakling, even people who considered themselves less well than Churchill. He dropped probably due to a general attitude that the country needs a dynamic, committed politician, even the irrepressible character. The night after his appointment, despite the news about the bad condition of the French battlefield, Churchill was sleeping great. Finally on the throne, laid in three. “I was aware of the feeling of total availability of relief … impatient waiting for the morning, I slept great with no need for pleasant dreams. The reality was better than sleep, “he wrote in a memoir.
A politician who was in the 65th year came to 10 Downing Street was faced with impossible problems. The French, given the size of the army, should be a serious opponent of the Germans. A week after Winston has traveled to Paris. He was initially in good spirits, and then he sank into depression. The French resistance, eventually, turned out weaker than the resistance of the Poles in September 1939. year. Armored units of General Hans Guderian through the Ardennes mountain range last unusually easy.

Escape from France

On the beaches at Dunkirk squeezed to 335 000 British and French forces. Hitler, however, decided to allow the evacuation. Was it because of the storage tanks or sending messages Britons, historians are still slow. The German leader of the 24th svibnja 1940th commanded deceleration unstoppable progression-panzer units. “The army is the backbone of the Empire,” said Hitler. If we destroy invazijski corpus of British forces, we will break the British Empire, and that the Germans were not wanted at that moment, nor could do. Several years later, at the very end of the war, 26 February 1945., Hitler said that “Churchill was not able to appreciate the sporting spirit that I showed when I refrain from creating irreversible barrier between the British and us. We are, indeed, that they abstained completely not grind at Dunkirk.
British Prime Minister’s probably got a message. “Wars are not receiving the evacuation,” said the parliamentarians after everything ended. Neither the policy of appeasement, which was led by his predecessor. The Germans had to be broken.
In November 1940th arrived in Berlin the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Disagreements Soviets and the Nazis, an ally of the agreement 1939th, there are about Bessarabia, where Soviet troops entered the Hungarian expansion at the expense of Romania. Announced a direct threat in the basement of the Ministry of the German counterpart Molotov Ribbentrop expressed fears about the British response to the remaking of Europe. “England is over. It is no longer a force, “he replied Ribbentrop. “If this is so, why are we in a shelter, and these bombs are falling,” he asked Molotov.
Soon tickets decoded. England hopeful was to Russia, spoke of Hitler. Without Russia’s no question that America would help because it will then increase the influence of Japan. “Russia is a factor that generally plays England … If Russia is gone, the last British hopes will be destroyed.” This was the reason for relatively rapid break the German attack on Britain.
Hitler already did not believe that Air Force may decide the battle for the island, all entered the half-power. The sooner a deal with Stalin, the war in the West will cease. Just as it was, but with a different result than that which Hitler had hoped, but in a sense, and Churchill. The victory of the Allies finally reached in which Churchill was equal, but only the third, least important factor.

Agreement on the Warsaw

WWII German attack began on Poland. Due to the Polish war has entered the United Kingdom. After the German attack on the Soviet 22nd June 1941. European war became the world. Poland, even on a symbolic level, fell into second place at the moment to decide the fate of humanity after the center of power shifted to Moscow and Washington. The fate of the Poles, it was decided long before the conversation Churchill and Stalin in October 1944. year. During the meeting at which the influence of Moscow and London in Yugoslavia split in half, in the USSR were also representatives of two Polish. Prokomunistička, Lublin and London-based, democratic government is awaiting the outcome. Churcill Stalin had previously said it was difficult with the Poles, their political leaders are constantly arguing. “Where there are two Poles, certainly was upset,” said the Briton. “Where is even one Pole, he will not argue with himself out of sheer boredom, has stepped up Stalin. Churchill really wanted a free Poland, and although it borders look different. The Soviets had to be satisfied.
“You are cruel people who want isprevrtati Europe,” said Polish Prime Minister in exile Mikołajczyk Winston Churchill. “Want to win Russia, will allow you to. I feel like in a mental hospital, “replied the Englishman, Pole. Poles question the eastern border was just as important as the defeat of Nazi Germany. Vyacheslav Molotov, standing with Churchill and U.S. Ambassador to Moscow W. Averella Harriman, Mikołajczyk in Moscow, then clearly said that U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt back in Tehran 1943rd agreed with Curzonovom Boundary USSR and Polish.

Hidden blessings

Poles were stunned silence watching time British prime minister, now a famous American diplomat. Silence and nothing was straightforward answer. Somewhat later, in February 1945. After everything was over, Churchill was the Polish General Wladyslaw Anders asked if dissatisfied with the Yalta Conference in which they confirmed the previous agreement. “It is to say that I am not satisfied. I think that happened a great misfortune. Polish people did not deserve such a solution, and we, the fighters, we did not expect. Poland in this war first spilled blood … filed a huge loss. She was an ally of Great Britain from the beginning … “said is true and annoying Pole. Forget that justice and geopolitics are not always the same thing. Churchill said that about all the time you should negotiate with Moscow. Because Polish is perhaps reluctantly started the war with France and Britain, the Germans, but she, like the Czech Republic, were not important enough in themselves to be entered into a bloodbath. Mali and less people sometimes can not clearly see.
In mid-July 1945. Churchill with Harry Truman, and Stalin was at the opening of the most important war meeting the big three at Potsdam. He then traveled to the island, where they were during the parliamentary elections. A day after winning the vote to British Prime Minister woke up around nine, earlier than they used to. Data from the polls were bad. Put on one of sirenskih suits that I invented – jednodijelnih, secured a patent suits, in which the man quickly jumped and guests could not wait naked or in his pajamas – lit a cigar and sank into an armchair faces darken. Regardless of the grit, are plagued by foreboding end. Living without power and the power was not real life, in the political wilderness thirties were sufficiently instructive.
New back winner in the war, a loser at the polls, could hardly be imagined. Clementine’s wife commented that it could be a hidden blessing, a good thing. If so, he replied, Winston, then he certainly has a very well hidden, I do not ever losing a sense of cynicism and subtleties of the English language.

Palin the poser

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You know, when it was first announced Bristol Palin would be appearing on ABC’s ‘Dancing With The Stars’ this year, I thought what I think every year when ABC announces their Dancing With The Stars line-up: “it’s ‘Dancing With The Stars’ and I don’t give a fuck about that show, but I’m sure something hilarious will come out of this pathetic attempt at broadcast television entertainment”.

From what I can glean on the internet, this year has been no exception, but the more I hear about ridiculous publicity stunts involving members of the Palin family these days the more I feel badly for the individuals caught up in the middle of the mess and angrier at the woman whose directly responsible for it all.

I wonder what Sarah Palin would say if you asked her what her opinion on fame is. What does she think about becoming famous? What did she see in famous people before she herself became famous? Is fame a responsibility or a luxury? Stumbling across this re-published article from 1996 in the Alaska Daily News, entitled “Alaskans line up for a whiff of Ivana”, then fisherman Sarah Palin, all the way back in the Clinton years, became a lede in a news article:

Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana.

And there, at J.C. Penney’s cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.

”We want to see Ivana,” said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, ”because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.”

…

Fast-forward to fall 2010, Sarah Palin’s new reality show on TLC got the highest ratings of any premier ever to air on the 38th most popular channel on basic cable. From what I’ve read, the show doesn’t perch much on politics or religion (or reality, let’s be honest here) but “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is simply a bunch of cameras following Sarah Palin and clan around while they embark on wacky adventures across America’s biggest concentration of tundras and glaciers.

As Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic points out however, “She Can’t Fish or Shoot a Gun”.

Sarah Palin. The woman best known for her love of sniping at arctic wolves from helicopter, immortalized by lonely Republican men around the country as a powerful starlet wearing a sexy red bikini and holding an AR-15 assault rifle, a mother who tries to relate to Real America over and over by talking about how much venison she’s stocked herself in the ice chest (aka outside) at home. She had to ask Levi Johnston to teach her how to use a hunting rifle, and from keen viewers to her show’s premier point out, she clearly knows nothing about fly fishing.

Trying to be something she’s not. While this isn’t a political tactic specific to just Sarah Palin, everyone in Washington panders to your sensibilities so you’ll like them more, but I think you could easily say Palin the the biggest exploiter currently of this quasi-celebrity/freakshow type of media attention. She is a paid talking head on FOX News, she wrote a book and toured the country promoting it (and is working on a second), receives extraordinarily amounts of money for speaking engagements where the press are actively discouraged from attending, has a daughter on a major prime-time TV show, now has her own TLC reality show, and receives financial contributions via private donors and her 527 SarahPAC organization. For Palin it hasn’t been too bad of a financial year (I’m surprised she’s so quite about wanting tax breaks for the wealthy).

Forget about thrusting one of your many daughters onto the public stage as a teenage mom and ironic abstinence advocate. For Sarah we have this PSA to thank her for:

It’s worth enough to mention too how Sarah Palin’s cult mama grizzly following showers an outpouring of support and unintelligible babble whenever Sarah needs it. Hence her book sales, hence her 5 million viewer reality TV show ratings (though I’m sure at least 2 million of these people tuned in to watch her crash and burn), and Palin also has her supporters to thank for her daughter Bristol’s continued voter-decided success on Dancing With The Stars.

And the best part? Because Palin is and always has been the Snookie of the political world, the less she seems to be accountable for giving straight answers to questions and proposing solutions to the problems that a president of the United States faces. And the more she’s allowed to act like a Real Housewife and not a former Alaskan governor, the more encouragement she gets to write books and parader her and her family around on television and seize greater political ambitions and appear on FOX News specials. She is her own walking PR press junket.

The more she pretends to be someone else the more people will like her for who she is, the less they will admire her for her understanding of the world and her ability to form coalitions while governing and move the country forward and making the United States successful once again. Voters can text their choice of president NOW to 94712, we’ll have the results for you right after this commercial break! Stay tuned!

Welcome to politicking in America.

Drain Clogs – 11-11-2010

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Happy Veteran’s Day!

The Google Logo for today is making dumb people dumber:

Anyone take a look at google’s salute to Veteran’s Day?
vanity
Posted on Thu Nov 11 2010 11:41:45 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by bgill

I know many of you don’t click over to google.com but just take a look. At first glance, the flag is nice but look a bit closer and you’ll see the red crescent. I’m not buying that it is yet another optical illusion.

crescent=Muslim, for those of you who don’t know.

The G has always looked to me a little bit communist, like a hammer and sickle.

4 posted on Thu Nov 11 2010 11:43:39 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by Genoa (Put the kettle on!)

You can’t spell Gun without G! Guns are communist!

If it IS a secret signal to communists, take note that Old Glory is way ON TOP of the crescent, and the sun is shining in approval.

As I mentioned on another thread, at least they showed the flag on Veteran’s day and did not commemorate some obscure event or birthday.

9 posted on Thu Nov 11 2010 11:45:48 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by DBrow

Yes, and while it’s fine for others to disagree, there is a tone from some of, “you are crazy, stop talking about this, blah blah blah”. I don’t like that at all.

12 posted on Thu Nov 11 2010 11:53:19 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by brytlea (Jesus loves me, this I know.)

In China, an activist who organized a support group for other parents whose children were sickened from tainted milk has been sentenced to two years in jail for having the audacity to help people.

Teabaggers are dumb. Case #1 – Teabaggers protest a local community’s trash policies as “communist”
Case #2 – Teabaggers protest safe drinking water laws. Hope you like that teabag cancer!

Wall Street F’s over America again.

Criminal and new Florida governor Rick Scott is breaking the law again.

That catfood commission report is dumb and dumb and dumb. Check out dm’s two part analysis here and here.

Cartoon of the Day:
Garfield hates the troops!

Deficit commission report 2

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Part 1 here.  I’m going to consolidate mandatory and discretionary spending into one post so I can deal with the tax stuff separately.

Discretionary

Discretionary spending is spending authorized or re-authorized every year by congress.  See the summary of the 2011 budget by the National Priorities Project here.

• 1% of the FY2011 discretionary budget was allocated to Food.

• 4% of the FY2011 discretionary budget was allocated to Education.

• Military expenditures are well over 50% of the discretionary budgets in each of fiscal years 2006-2011.

It’s pretty obvious where to cut and kind of telling that they only proposed $100 billion in cuts here despite the fact that it accounts for over a third of the federal budget. Still, they managed to come in with a few stupid proposals like “sell excess federal property” which they estimated to save $1 billion.  I wonder who might buy and re-sell property taken off the government’s balance sheet and how that might “save” anybody anything.

Mandatory

Mandatory spending is spending that occurs in compliance with existing laws to comply with particular programs or functions such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.  They begin by not recommending either single-payer or a public option on health care and jut go after weird stuff like “tort-reform” (i.e. limiting corporate liability in civil litigation).  The results are correspondingly modest and should be pretty embarrassing to anyone pretending to be serious about this.

Next they recommend shifting to a “chained CPI” which makes no sense.  The CPI is a really selective and terrible measure of inflation for a number of reasons that I don’t really have the space for here.  The point is that it’s supposed to be a measure of inflation, so indexing it over time like you do with the GDP, etc. makes absolutely no sense.  There argument for doing this is:

Current measures of inflation overestimate increases in cost of living by failing to account for “substitution bias”

Substitution for living?  I don’t know, the CPI has always been pretty bad and that’s kinda creepy.

P. 38: “Eliminate in-school interest subsidies for student loans”

So shift it off the government’s balance sheets and on to students’ rather than just reducing the the interest on them altogether or maybe providing more in grants, or having schools stop raising tuition so much for no reason.

P. 39: “End payments to states and tribes for abandoned mines.”

I’m pretty sure that violates some treaties, but it’s not like that hasn’t happened before.

“Extend FCC’s authority to auction radio spectrum licenses.”

Privatize.

“Require IRS to deposit fees for its services in Treasury as miscellaneous receipts.”

Making up new costs.

“Index all fixed-dollar user fees to inflation.”

But don’t measure them with the CPI.

Then they bring out the stuff about social security’s supposed solvency problems.  For that, see this and this.

Deficit commission report 1

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Link (pdf).  This thing is 50 pages long so I’m going to do it in several parts. It’s absolutely terrible and full of lies.  Its guiding principle was explained by Marx in Vol. I of Capital:

The system of public credit, i.e., of national debts, whose origin we discover in Genoa and Venice as early as the Middle Ages, took possession of Europe generally during the manufacturing period. The colonial system with its maritime trade and commercial wars served as a forcing-house for it. Thus it first took root in Holland. National debts, i.e., the alienation of the state – whether despotic, constitutional or republican – marked with its stamp the capitalistic era. The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt.  Hence, as a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital. And with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which may not be forgiven.

The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation – as also apart from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven – the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy.

Keep that in mind the next time somebody tells you he had no idea what he was talking about.  As for the present, here is some good background on why a number of these things are lies:

1st Fiscal Sustainability Teach-In and Counter-Conference

Deficit spending 101 (part 2, part 3)

Fiscal sustainability 101 (part 2, part 3)

Ok, on to the report:

P. 4: “We must stabilize then reduce the national debt, or we  could spend $1 trillion a year in interest alone by 2020.”

To who? Who is this interest being paid to? No, it’s not China, nobody in China saves in or spends American dollars because they have their own currency.  This is “owed” to somebody who does save/spend in American dollars which is  (in theory) the American public and there’s no need to track money we owe to ourselves so we can be done with this, right?  No, we need shore up the balance sheets of insolvent banks (who were just given another $600 billion the other day by the Federal Reserve) with spending that otherwise would have been on other things.  Some of them are undoubtedly unnecessary, but many are not.

P. 5: “Invest in education, infrastructure, and high-value R&D.”

In other words: for-profit education, the FIRE sector, and the tech sector.

P. 6: “Bring spending down to 22% and eventually 21% of GDP.”

This is really bizarre.  Where did they come up with this number?  Why does it matter what percent of the GDP is federal spending?  It sounds like somebody is making it up as they go along.

P. 8: What are “illustrative” savings?

“Pass tax reform that dramatically reduces rates, simplifies the code, broadens the base, and reduces the deficit.”

Sounds like the Ryan plan.

P. 9: “Reduces tax rates, abolishes the AMT…”

The AMT is the Alternative Minimum Tax, not a particularly pressing problem.  A good indicator of the commission’s ideological extremism.

The charts and tables are extremely silly.  I’ll probably divide this up into three more posts with discretionary spending in part 2, tax reform in part 3, and the rest in part 4.

Drain Clogs – 11-09-10

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Conservatives are now calling for the eradication of Grizzly Bears. I am not making this up. Please note my lack of Colbert jokes.

Texas’s budget problem is proportionally worse than California’s. Looks like fiscal conservatism doesn’t have all the answers! Who woulda thunk it?

Arizona state senator Russell Pearce (a sb1070 guy) is saying Arizona will refuse federal funding for health care, affecting the 1 million people on the program. What does Pearce say about them?

RESNIK: And the one million people on access, what’s their future?

PEARCE: They’ll probably be okay.

Newly elected congressman Allen West (who is a war criminal, btw!) hired a crazy person for his chief of staff. Who woulda thunk it??

Ben Franklin was for progressive taxation….that COMMIE!!!

Morgan Stanley wealth manager Martin Joel Erzinger committed a hit and run, and won’t be charged because he’s all rich and stuff. Colorado District Attorney Mark Hurlbert is the guy who won’t charge him, if you need someone to send angry emails to.

This is very gross.

Beck says something bad is coming! How can that be, when his book has already come out…

Cartoon of the Day:

We are all doomed!!!! (This time it’s totally for real!)

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Got a e-mail the other day talking about this trip I hope somebody looks into about what I am to say. And I hope it is not true! But in 10 to 20 days something is going down. I will post here as to what I got. Darla or somebody check this out ? Thanks!

Here is a some info on what is going on. There are so very many people are saying that something very big is going to happen in the next 10-20 days.— -that it would be foolish not to take notice. I am looking / hoping for something good.

Here in summation is what various insiders and people from different ranks and files are saying: (as I write this, it
is being talked about on Fox – Wed – 3rd Nov)
1) Obama has rented a massive luxurious huge 800 room motel in India for a period in November. He also has rented rooms at 3 nearby motels. He will be out of the country & in India for the entire period in question.- November 8th-till the end of the month. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/8084055/Barack-Obamas-Indian-delegation-books-800-rooms-in-Mumbai.html

2) A Web bot designer has designed a program that picks up stressors in emails/ news/ articles on the internet. Though he hasn’t always been accurate, he did correctly predicted 9-11. He says all indications of his program strongly point to something HUGE -an event (s)-between Nov 8-14th http://www.ufo-blogger.com/2009/07/latest-web-bot-predictions-2010.html
3) Various financial insiders around the world are saying the US $$ is worthless and are looking for a different base currency and predict a total collapse of the $$ possibly in November, but sometime in the next 4 months. That is NOT a bad thing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3g5lUgkWk

4) The BRIC countries (Britian, Russia, India and China) are meeting to decide what to use for a currency to take things over and use as a base currency when the inevitable collasp occurs. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=bric-nations-oppose-us-on-currency-control-2010-10-08
5) the Illuminate (the evil power brokers behind the scene who are in favor of one world tryanny/ dictatorship) are calling an emergency meeting to see if their hope for total one world fascism/ tyrannical government is still possible.
6) Those associated with the Rockefellers and Rothschild’s -(those tyrannical people who own the banks and the Federal Reserve ..those people who make & cause wars for the purpose to make money) and some of their very family members- are separating themselves from these families of organized crime and want no part of their plan to kill off millions of people via immunizations,genetic modified food, chem trails, starvation, depleted Uranium, etc. They have HAD it!! http://www.rense.com/general92/gmo.htm
7) Many inside the White House are talking that Obama will be removed from office during this period by invoking section 4 of the 25th Amendment. Cabinet members and advisors are saying that he is totally lazy, watches ESPN TV all day long, and is disinterested in Presidential duties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
8) Others say that Obama is standing true to his word to release suppressed technologies and that the black hats want to remove him to keep the suppressed technologes suppressed.
9) Do notice that members close to Obama are leaving their post in Droves. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/summers-may-leave-as-head-of-obama-s-national-economic-council-in-november.html
10) Benjamin Fulford (he has been the international and Asian financial reporter for Forbes and Money magazine) has friends who are very well connected to the insiders- (the people behind the scenes who actually run our government). He says that many of his sources are saying disclosure is close. He gave out many details here on his web site. http://benjaminfulford.net/2010/10/25/illuminati-rule-to-end-this-year-maybe-even-this-week-2/
This prompted him to get a call from David Wilcock.
10) David Wilcock ( who also has many friends who are very well connected to the insiders who run the government )again says that disclosure is close. He talked with Benjamin Fulford ( #13) and they compared notes. Both of them have multiple different sources on the inside. Fulford is NOT an Obama fan. So for him to say something good abut Obama… it must be true. Wilcock is an Obama fan. Both of them are saying that Obama is pushing for disclosure and that within 2 weeks we are going to find out (officially) that we are NOT alone, that suppressed technologies exist, what suppressed technologies exist.. and that mom and dad could of been zipping around like the Jetsons 80 years ago! http://stevebeckow.com/2010/10/25/david-wilcock-attack-on-obama-an-insider-campaign-military-ready-to-share-technology-perhaps-disclose/#more-22179
— and —
http://divinecosmos.com/index.php/start-here/davids-blog/872-disclosureevent
11)Also that Obama is going to India to make the announcement with & from a country who also supports disclosure… http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/11/09/01935.html
12) The Mayan calendar points to a big event in this same period in November.
13) Whether you agree with them philosophically or not… Various intuitives also feel something very big is about to happen
14) As does Numerology –it also points to and says that 11-20-2010 will be very big day/ time
15) Reports say that Illuminate / Bilderberg members are looking for countries of refuge and are being turned away.
16) Multiple sources strongly encourage people to buy dehydrated and or freeze dried food and have enough for a minimum of 6 months. It would be dumb not to. We grow 65 % of our food outside the US now. When the $$ collapses -which is inevitable -we will likely be short and not be able to get food for a period of time. Plus some will hoard and make the supply shorter… Walmart and Cosco are offering freeze dried & dehydrated food for hard times. It behooves you to get some. How long the transition will last is any ones guess. The stores shelves will be bare. This is not to induce fear. Yet there will be a transition period. We must cover our bases. Failing to prepare is just plain stupid.

I am not a fan of Obama, but the one and only thing I hoped Obama would do is release suppressed technologies. Werner von Braun said in 1978 that there is enough sppressed technology to turn the WORLD… not just the US, but the WORLD into a 100 year renassaunce. We need it now! If that is the plan release it next month… we will all be better off.
Perhaps nothing will happen. November may come and go without any event. I just read a lot, and have never seen so many indicators point to a specific time period. So I thought I would let you know.
I wish you and your well,