Some Recently Read Material

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Pope Has it Right

This article is interesting. The Pope is reiterating something that has been obvious for years, that with 8 billion people on the planet, there no longer exist any use to humanity for trillions of dollars sloshing around the globe with nothing but a profit at all cost motive.

Still, half of the links to the statement I searched had been removed...

Fix The Deficit?

I don't know if you ever ran across this from the New York Times on how to fix the American Government's budget problems http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=hm101bqx

But you can see by taking proposals right "off the shelf" (where many a forgotten bill resides) any "idiot" can solve the deficit. I am telling you man, the reason the dollar does not collapse and people run for the hills is smart people know the entire deficit could be solved in a minute. Outside of the right wing rhetoric, Americans are simply NOT taxed nearly as much as their counterparts in the "developed" world. Trillions of dollars are written off, and there exist so much waste and inefficiency in American government and all government spending (incompetence reeks in all levels of American government), that any reasonable corporate manager could cut 30% off direct government spending in a weekend and outside of the "press" and the people who are let go from their government "jobs" (in quotes cause many government workers do 40% work at best) the overall population would not feel a thing.

It is always amusing that when Presidents like GWB were in office, they essentially told EPA, FDA, Energy, SEC and entire financial regulation apparatus etc. to lay off businesses and allow businesses to "self regulate", that business had become "sophisticated" enough to resolve problems, set safe guidelines etc. in ways that would not harm growth etc. Well we all know that is hogwash, but it makes a good speech and sounds great, but it simply does not work.

However, if this is the way of governing or the attitude by the Right, then why did GWB never lay off one government worker? Why did he not revamp agencies, put in hiring freezes, reduce staff in areas where he felt there was over regulation? In my lifetime, if I am correct, it was Clinton, not Bush I or Bush II or Reagan that ever actually "shrunk" the rolls of government workers and the workers in industry tied to the Defense industry after the "end of the cold war". Every republican president in my life dramatically increased government spending!! GWB was the worse!!

Anyway, you can see the results of my choices. Just make the changes you want. Whether you are left of center of right of center it takes about 15 minutes, yea 15 MINUTES, to solve the budget crises, in your living room, with no lobbing industry spending $3.5 Billion Dollars beating at your door each year... Give it a try... Most of the impotent, incompetent "legislators" we have would serve our nation better planting rice in the California dessert.