Hope everyone is done and relaxed for the rest of the year now.
I was looking at some of the forms and was struck by the prevalence of the paperwork reduction act notices. Yes, they've been there for years, but I guess I have too much time on my hands now.
But I was curious so I counted the pieces of paper that are my 2012 returns.
A whopping 26 pages.
That is both federal and state and to be fair, that 1 page return was when NJ didn't have an income tax.
How much paper to produce those 26 pages? 88 pieces of paper. W-2, 1099, charitable donation receipts, etc. etc.
Whew. Glad we've reduced all that paper.
Back in the 60s my tax return was a single piece of paper. True I
have investments I didn't have back then and I didn't own a house etc. This is my 1967 tax return.
That's it. Eleven pieces of information. Address is item 1 and my refund is line 11. Now that's paperwork reduction.
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.
I was listening to the news on a local radio station this morning
I pricked up my ears when they started talking about gas prices. Their report stated that gas prices had risen again. The average was up 11 cents this week. That made me a little curious as I had bought gas late yesterday and noticed that the price was the same as I had previously paid.
I've recorded every gas purchase I've made for my personal vehicles since the early seventies. In recent years I've kept a spreadsheet. Anyway, segue aside, I took a look and found that the current price is at its lowest since over 7 months ago. As you can see below, I typically buy gas 1 to 2 times a month.
So are the prices so volatile that they are hopping up and down frequently and I'm just not seeing this because I'm not buying every other day? Or is something else going on?
Just wondering
Here's what I've paid over the last 8 months. You can see that you have to go back to last May to find cheaper gas. All fill-ups were at the same gas station except for Nov 5 and July 28 (this one the same brand but different place).
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered a concussion early last week after fainting and striking her head, the State Department disclosed on Saturday.
As a result, she will not testify as scheduled on Thursday before Congressional committees investigating the September attack on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
. . .
Acting on the advice of her doctors, Mrs. Clinton will not go to the State Department this week but will work from home, the State Department said.
That leaves about a month left as Secretary of State. That of course assumes that Obama appoints Kerry to start as soon as his second term starts. Now Congress might quit for Christmas within a week so I guess Hillary's exposure is only about 2 1/2 weeks.
What will be her excuse when Congress is back in session after the new year? "My dog ate my testimony"?
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?
