Yesterday, I got up, walked the dog (her name's Widget and she's a 13 year old Yorky/Poodle mix - my second love after wife, Annette) and got the papers in as I always do. I read two a day, one from metropolitan Orlando and a local rag.
But I had a thought - always dangerous - and decided to read the papers objectively and see if there was anything presented there that would tweak my thinking into making further comment.
I was astounded!
The first picture I saw was of an immaculate worker in tyvek britches, booties and rubber gloves, standing in a kiddy pool of solvent (and I'd love to see where they pour it when they're done with it!) demonstrating how safety is job one in cleaning up tar balls on the beaches - where ever the hell he was. How asinine. While I would not like to be immersed in crude oil for any length of time, the safety suit, booties and gloves serve no purpose - the gloves do keep the tar off so he won't have to clean up after he puts in his six hour day (that's right - they work a little, grab a cool drink and park their rear under a tent to keep from getting overheated in all that get up). What a show - and that's all it is - a show. Disgusted #1.
Photo courtesy P. Semansky/AP
The second piece I read says, "As property values drop, Orange County cities plan tax-rate hikes" .. I live in central Florida, so their talking about Orlando here. Such hubris they exhibit. As revenue drops from loss of tax payer assets (his home), the politicians and school boards just wants to hold up homeowners who are still paying their mortgages or own outright, and jack up tax rates instead of looking for ways to save money. If you own a house in this country, be advised, you don't. You rent it from the city or county or state government because no matter how much they gouge you in taxes, if you don't pay them, they will come after you with a gun and sell your house on the court house steps whether you like it or not. Outrage#1 .
Next, I read where the U.S. senate OK'd a billion (borrowed) dollar bail out for the states so Medicaid fraud and non-fireable teachers can retain their jobs (and Obama will sign it). Yes I know, Medicaid does serve a lot of indigent men, women and children and some teachers do good work but I'd feel better if teachers were strictly on merit pay plan and if they couldn't cut it, lay them off. I'd also like the state to broaden by 100% the audit effort into Medicaid fraud to reduce the amount of money spent on people who do not need or deserve it. Again, no effort to streamline services, make the schools more efficient, stop wasteful spending and tighten finances. Oh no. We just throw more printed debt created money at it so everyone eventually has to pay for it. Want another pissed off fact? Medicare pays out an estimated billion bucks in fraudulent payments. They hire private contractors to audit and catch this fraud. They pay over 0 million a year to these private contractors who take an average of 178 days to present a fraudulent case to Medicare for legal action. Medicare in the last year recovered million dollars. Just what the Hell is the point? Do the math, it cost three times what they recover to audit the fraud that goes on out there (and you can bet that the fraud far outreaches official "estimates". Fire all the bastards and start over.. Outrage #2 and #3..
Ding-a-ling! A letter to the Orlando Sentinel Editor gripes bitterly about franking privileges given U.S. Congressman and Senators. Seems like one of our Florida representatives Alan Grayson spent ,000 to produce and mail a DVD to all his constituents praising what he has done (just before primary elections, of course). The gentleman who wrote the letter stated that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for this and that "politicians should pay for this kind of thing out of their own pockets". Hello? Hello?
Who does he think pays the congressman's salary? What difference does it make which taxpayer pocket the congressman picks when he spends money. He has a choice of spending taxpayer money or taxpayer money. Stupidity #1.
Next, the paper printed a great article on "Slowdown - taking shape" - a full page spread, showing false and distorted bar charts of congressional and executive budget office propaganda and federal reserve crap that has been so manipulated and massaged that it no longer bears any resemblance to what is really going on here. Fact, every DIME spent by the federal government for whatsoever reason now exceeds revenue and is borrowed or simply printed. They exceeded their cash flow income long ago and simply get the treasury to print a pile of notes, bill and bonds which the federal reserve buys (most of them) and issues credits to the treasury to pay whatever monies congress votes to give away. In the article, young Timmy Gethner says unemployment might go up. Ha!. The article manages to present a very poor case for both inflation and deflation and on the same page, Gethner and Kathleen Sebelius sing the woes of social security and medicare even though they are as much of the problem as any past treasury secretary and health and human services secretary since July 30, 1965, when Medicare Trust Funds were invested not in assets but in "special "U.S. treasury I.O.U.'s " (that are not redeemable except by the U.S. treasury - surprise!) that will never be paid. To pay them, the Treasury must sell these I.O.U.'s to generate the cash to pay off Medicare (and Social Security) obligations and unless the federal reserve buys them, they won't be able to make the payments as they come due.
The only question is when is the rest of the world going to wise up to the Ponzi scheme of American debt financing (or do they know something we don't?) and stop wasting their money on treasury obligations? When that happens, the only buyer left is the federal reserve and when that happens, it will take a week for the dollar to collapse and all of us will be in the deep soup of a likely hyper-inflationary deflation. (which is the worst of all worlds). Right now, the economists are crying "Deflation" because of 0.1% decline in consumer prices in the latest figures. A single 0.1 percent anything is NOISE and counts for nothing. Outrage #4
All this from two newspapers on one day (one regional and one local). However, I did my green bit, saved the paper (reuse the tree so to speak) to start a charcoal (oops!) fire with when I'm in the mood to cook out so except for the soot, smoke and CO2 that the paper and charcoal makes when I cook a steak, I feel pretty good about the conservation of trees for multiple use and all that. I'm glad I'm in the middle of the Florida peninsula, so that water from melting ice caps won't reach here for another 200 years or so at which time I won't care. Of course, if we loose the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a little early, all bets are off and I'll have beach front property. That may not be too bad as it would temporarily up the value of my postage stamp property.
Honestly, people, we seem to be swirling ever closer to a perfect storm. Our governments are lying to us right and left, the military is consuming ever more Ponzi financed resources (and don't think they can't be used to quell civil unrest if it comes to push and shove!), nothing is changing as politicians everywhere from local, state and federal governments are trying their damnedest to kick the can down the road just one more time. I have a feeling they won't manage to do it. The debt burden is too heavy. The Ponzi finance has grown too large. I felt pretty much the same way in 1973-4 but we managed to skate by that one. Now I'm not so sure. Besides all that, the weather is sure getting screwy - dry areas flooding and wet areas burning up. If I were in Moscow, I'd book a flight to Pakistan just to breath damp air. Bring your bathing suit (Humor #1).
I think future historians (if there are any) will look back and say that from the end of WWII through the end of the 1980's was the best to be had in the United States. I think the later 2000's will suck.
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