All Fools Day at the White House

Came early this year when the President declared April as National Financial Capability Month on March 29.

I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices

Obama is lecturing me on financial responsibility?  Perhaps he'll teach me how to make and adhere to a budget?

So what's next?

Is John Boehner going to teach me how to use sun block?

Is Debbie Wasserman Schultz going to teach me how to comb my hair?

This is the second year of National Financial Capability Month.  We also had  National Financial Literacy Month in 2010 & 2011.

If you do not have a life, you can read all four:

April 2, 2010	-	2010 National Financial Literacy Month
March 31, 2011	-	2011 National Financial Literacy Month
April 2, 2012	-	2012 National Financial Capability Month
March 29, 2013	-	2013 National Financial Capability Month

So here is what I learned:

The debt at the end of March when each of these proclamations were made:

Year	Total Debt
2010	12,773,123,000,000
2011	14,270,115,000,000
2012	15,582,079,000,000
2013	16,687,289,000,000

So given we had a debt of 11,126,941 000,000 on  March 31 2009, the president called on us to become financially literate while the federal government was racking this sort of debt each year:

Year	Debt Increase	Debt Incr per Person *
2010	1,646,182,000,000	5487.27
2011	1,496,992,000,000	4989.97
2012	1,311,964,000,000	4373.21
2013	1,105,210,000,000	3684.03

* using a rough number of 300,000,000 people

So the federal government has increased the debt for each person in the U.S. by 18534.49.  Yep.  That's almost $20,000 even for your child sleeping in her cradle.

Here it is only 2-April.  I think my financial acumen has really grown.

Romney vs The Garbage Man

Have you seen the latest video from Obama?

Richard Hayes is Romney's garbage man lamenting that mean old Mitt doesn't come out to hug him, give him some Gatorade, etc.

Richard also laments that picking up 15-16 tons of garbage is taking a toll on his body.  Seems to me that could be a bit high.  Maybe Romney and his neighbors have heavy garbage.  But I know my trash bags are never as heavy as the 35 lb salt bags for my water softener.  But let's say the average is 35lb.  Let's assume a working 8 hours (that is 8 hours of work, no breaks, just work).   You have to pick up 914 bags or a bag every 31 seconds.  That seems like some mighty fast collecting.  How long does it take to get from stop to stop?  You'd have to subtract that from the 31 seconds.

But the most interesting part of the video is? 

Something is wrong here.  Did they fake something here?  Doesn't seem like those could be the trucks that Richard uses to pick up Mitt's garbage.  Why?  Because those trucks are the kind that does that automatically.  No manual bag pickup.  Look at the beginning of the video again.  Around the 7 second mark.   At the 9 second mark you can clearly see that arm that wraps around the trash can silhouetted against the sky.  So what's the story here Richard?

But maybe Richard isn't getting those hugs because Mitt is spending all his time hugging Joan Raymond.  I mean she says she picks up his trash too.

I think Richard needs to try harder for those hugs.  My first suggestion is: shave the beard.  I mean maybe I'm just a sucker for blonds, but Joan is more appealing to me.

I wonder if Barry has run out of the oval office to make sure he can claim he hugs his trash man?  Just asking.

Oh, and Mitt might have some idea.  From his book,  No Apology; The Case for American Greatness:

During my campaign for governor, I decided to spend a day every few weeks doing the jobs of other people in Massachusetts.  Among other jobs, I cooked sausages at Fenway Park, worked on asphalt paving crew, stacked bales of hay on a farm,
. . .
One day I gathered trash as a garbage collector. I stood on that little platform at the back of the truck, holding on as the driver navigated his way through the narrow streets of Boston. As we pulled up to traffic lights, I noticed that the shoppers and businesspeople who were standing only a few feet from me didn’t even see me. It was as if I was invisible. Perhaps it was because a lot of us don’t think garbage men are worthy of notice; I disagree – anyone who works that hard deserves our respect. - I wasn’t a particularly good garbage collector: at one point, after filling the trough at the back of the truck, I pulled the wrong hydraulic lever. Instead of pushing the load into the truck, I dumped it onto the street. Maybe the suits didn’t notice me, but the guys at the construction site sure did…

No, it wasn't a career, but then how many others have done that much?

Big Government Gone Wild

This one should make a libertarian out of everyone.

Florida has a law requiring vending machine owners to post a notice with no purpose other than to display the notice:

Operators must post the following statement on each machine:

NOTICE TO CUSTOMER: 

FLORIDA LAW REQUIRES THIS NOTICE TO BE POSTED ON ALL FOOD AND BEVERAGE VENDING MACHINES. Report any machine without a notice to 1-800-352-9273. You may be eligible for a cash reward. DO NOT USE THIS NUMBER TO REPORT PROBLEMS WITH THE VENDING MACHINE SUCH AS LOST MONEY OR OUT-OF-DATE PRODUCTS. 

http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/tips/tip10a01-05.html

Notice there is no real notice. No contact the police if you are being mugged.  Nor perhaps the health department if say mold is oozing from the machine or anything OTHER than if the notice is absent, then you might be eligible for a reward.

In case you missed it, the real humor comes if the notice is missing.  If the notice is missing, you are supposed to report the violation.  But of course if the notice is missing, you won't see the telephone number to use for reporting the violation.

I think Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story about this.

Fortunately churches, etc are exempt:

(5)?The provisions of this section do not apply to vending machines owned and operated by churches, synagogues, or nonprofit or charitable organizations exempt pursuant to s. 212.08(7)(z).

If you still think this is a prank, check the Florida legislative site:  Legislative Text

Labor Day or Union Day?

Dateline - WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) —

Organizers of the Labor Day parade in Wausau say Republican lawmakers aren’t welcome in this year’s event.

The Marathon County Central Labor Council sponsors the Sept. 5 parade. The council includes about 30 local unions from the Marathon County area.
The Wausau Daily Herald

Since then, the mayor has requested that the organizers back off or reimburse the town for expenses. 

In an interview with the press, he was even more blunt. "This is not a political rally, it's a parade, for God's sake," Tipple told Reuters. Pointing out that tax money normally pays for the event, the Mayor said excluding Republicans "flies in the face of public policy."
New American

So what is Labor Day?  Is it a big union day?  Or is it a celebration of the American worker?  According to Wikipedia it is a federal holiday that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.  But Wikipedia also states the Labor Day was first observed by labor unions.

I agree with mayor wholeheartedly.   If Labor Day celebrates all workers from the janitor to the CEO, then fine with the town kicking some bucks in. 

I don't want my tax dollars to go to union parties.  What are unions today other than sanctioned political monopolies?  Big unions aren't working me.  As near as I can tell they aren't even working for their members.  Let's celebrate Labor Day all together.  Let divisive unions take their party somewhere else.

Should PBS be defunded?

I enjoyed the American Masters on WHYY this afternoon.  It was essentially a biography on Jeff Bridges.

Just happened to leave the TV on afterward.  At 5PM a program named Smart Talk came on.  As most other programs for the last week, it dealt with the Tucson shooting and political debate etc.

It's not even half over as I write this and they have talked on and on about hate filled speech.  And while they have prefaced it by saying something like "there is no known direct connection..." they have shown the Palin graphic twice now.  Given that Palin was a private citizen when she put hers up, I am appalled that they haven't shown at least once the DLC graphic which preceded Palin's and is virtually identical (other than it targets Republican districts rather than Democrat districts).  Also haven't heard anyone say something like "hold on a minute.  That guy was stalking Gabby before anyone even knew who Sarah Palin was".

Yes, time for PBS to stand on its own.  My tax dollars should go to reducing debt.  Not for subsidizing PBS partisan political agendas.  If there was a time when PBS was needed as an alternate voice, the internet and other outlets that allow an infinite amount of views have long ago obviated the need for this station.

In case you have missed it, the Palin graphic:

The Democratic graphic you probably have not seen if you are a PBS or MSNBC viewer.  I found it in a December 2004 entry at the Democratic Leadership Council website.

 

I notice that it is the Democratic version which uses terms such as Behind Enemy Lines and Targeting Strategy and ripe targets.

Lance a lot

Although I don't usually answer the phone when it does not provide a good caller ID, I just happened to on a whim this afternoon.

Turned out it was a Leonard Lance town hall. Work being a little boring at the moment and never having been on one of these I punched in to it (this time a lark and not a whim).

After a few minutes, a voice came on and said that if I had a question to press *3.

Now I've held his yes vote on Cap and Trade against him for the last year. So I decided ask him that given recent questions on the science and CO2, given the commercial scam being backed by Soros and Gore, given the revealed mysterious patents acquired by Franklin Raines while at Fannie would he still vote for it? So I pressed *3 and a voice came on. The voice knew who I was and asked what question I had. I just said it was a question about Cap and Trade.

I didn't actually expect to get to ask the question as I figured these things are monitored and filtered. BUT, to my surprise, they called on someone from Bridgewater who did ask almost the exact same question.

LL did come out and say he would not vote for the same bill if it came around again. A true change of heart? Does he see a tea party in his rear view mirror? I don't know of course, but I do have to give him credit for admitting that he was wrong. That seems kind of refreshing in today's political world.

Given what I seen on his recent voting record, I'll have to give Lenny another look. A real mea culpa might actually earn him one extra vote.

 

Take Tea at 3

I wanted to see what all this tea party stuff was about.

I was too lazy and too cheap to get up, buy a bus ticket, and get to the bus to go to DC.  So I went to Morristown to their rally (billed as for those who were to cheap or lazy couldn't go).

The rally was held on the Morristown square.  The Morristown square is in the middle of town, in the middle of the business district.  The square is much like the Boston Commons but smaller.  There are four intersecting streets that form a square block.  That square is a park with benches and the like.

The rally was scheduled to run from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM.  I got to Morristown a little after 11 and had to spend a few minutes finding somewhere to park.  I found a new parking garage a few blocks from the square.

So I missed the beginning, but caught the first speaker part way through his spiel.  The speakers / speeches were pretty much what I had expected.  The speeches mostly railed against big government and government spending.  It was kind of having come out of Mr Peabody's WABAK machine.  If it was not for the topics being government spending rather than the war in Vietnam, I would have lit one of those Winstons I smoked back then.

I thought it was a decent crowd considering most people should be at work and if you had any ambition you'd be in DC.

I would say the majority of the attendees were older, but there were a fair number of 20's & 30's as well.  There were a few mothers with strollers as well as toddlers and preschoolers.   I didn't see any of the left-wing sabateurs like Crash the Tea Party types.

I did see a kind of counter protest by a small group in the very back. 

But I'm not sure what they were saying.  Can someone tell me what MORE BLOOD WON'T CLEANSE BAD BLOOD means?  Does this have anything to do with the Tea Party?  Are they saying drink blood, not tea?  I'm so confused.  One thing I did notice was an SDS sign.

 Gee, those guys are still around?  I mean I know that several of those original SDS ( and Weather Underground) founders / members are presidential advisers, but I didn't know they were still on college campuses (I assume the kids were from some local college).

The Tea Party people had their signs of course.  For the most part the signs were anti-taxes and government spending.  The sort of thing you would expect of the Tea Party people.  But I did see this one that I guess

seeks to explain the how and why of the Tea Party movement.  I was thinking it might be a little more complicated than that.

Unlike the news accounts you hear, I didn't see any wild terrorist wanna-bees.  No hitler signs.  I did see guns though.  Strapped to the several police who were there.  The hired security were armed to the teeth with a vest and walkie-talkie.

The only sign I saw which was a bit obnoxious was this one:

 

But I also thought it was kind of funny too.  If this is the worst the Tea Party has, I think Bill Clinton needs to look elsewhere for his terrorist concerns.

Guns for Lead Based Toys

"China's military stepped up pressure on the United States on Monday by calling for a government sell-off of U.S. debt securities in retaliation for recent arms sales to Taiwan."

 - Washington Times 2010-02-10

When will we wise up?  Will it take a real economic strike by China crippling our economy before we tighten our belts and stop the insane spending.  Federal, state, and our own consumer addictive self destructive behavior has to stop.

Sanctions

The news today reported that China is threatening sanctions against the US because of arms sales to Taiwan.

How could they?

As many have been predicting for some years now, our debt will come back to bite us in the butt.  China has been buying up our debt for years now.  And now like the poor broke neighborhood gambler up to his eyeballs in debt to the loan sharks, we could be truly screwed.

If we are to prevent our proverbial legs from being broken, we need to STOP THE SPENDING.  I never thought this was going to work.  But the feds took a shot.  It ain't working.  The projection is now that every penny of personal income tax will be needed to cover the interest on the debt. 

What's next?

Default?

Hyperinflation?  That worked out well in Germany now didn't it.

STOP THE INSANITY!

Taxpayer Subsidized Pet Care

wow. Two posts in one day and both political.

Republicans keep saying to trust them. They are the fiscal conservatives, blah, blah, blah.

How about Thaddeus McCotter, Michigan Republican Congressman?

This miscreant from the fiscal conservative party wants to give everyone a $3,500 deduction for pet care! This is outrageous! Don't make me pay for YOUR freakin' gold fish. You want a cat? Pay for it yourself! Sorry Jen but that includes you and Leo too.

No. It isn't April 1. Read the official PDF of this garbage.

Michael Steele - same old same old

Michael Steele was on the John Gambling (710 AM) show this morning (some guest host Dom G??) saying the same old tired stuff. He talks and talks about the bad old Democrats and never tells us how he is going to clean up his own party. How can we trust a guy who blasts Democrats for their health care, cap and trade, etc. etc. and yet won't call out his own Republican party members who vote to pass that stuff.

He talked about Republicans listening to the people. BUT, when I wrote to my Republican congressman who voted 'yes' on cap and trade, I never got a response. Seems like the RNC is still a bunch of hypocrites in for the politics and not for serving the nation or its citizens.

I am worried that the current administration will totally wreck this nation and or the economy in short order. I am concerned that a third party would take so much time that it would be too little too late. But at this point, although it is a long shot, I'm leaning towards a third party as the only chance.