The Budget Problem Visualized

In fascinating graphs... What a MESS!!!

Iowa Passes School Vouchers

Without requiring equal expectations. :-O  Jerry's dream has come true in Iowa.  The state is going to use tax payer funds to subsidize people who want to send their kid's to religious and other private schools.

And those schools will be allowed to cherry pick only the best students and families.  They can turn down special needs, troubled and other children.  Therefore the traditional schools will lose funding and good families / kids.  And the poor / unlucky families and kids will suffer. Oh well...

Florida Fears Complexity

In African American college prep classes.  It still amazes me how Conservatives want State politicians to dictate what is acceptable in local school districts?

So much for them being the proponents of Local Government control... :-(

GOP Plays With Debt Limit

FIRE.  Do they never learn?

Now I want to balance the budget and pay down some of the debt.

However lets get real, it will likely require more tax revenue AND spending cuts.

Trump Tax Fraud Fine Too Small

Why IRS NEEDS Personnel and why GOP is trying undercut the IRS. 

Apples and Watermelons

Biden vs Trump document situation.  I mean both screwed up and were careless with classified documents.  However Biden self reported the findings and worked with the National Archives to get them returned when they were found.  

Where as Trump repeatedly lied and sought to obstruct the effort to return the documents to the National Archives.  Even today he claims to have the right to retain them.

And yet people will try to equate the situations.  It is so strange...

PPP Wasted Billions

This report is Amazing and Disturbing...

In the meantime, the Paycheck Protection Program has contributed to the country's $31 trillion federal debt, an amount that eventually could lead to higher taxes and fewer government services.  "Basically," said MIT's Autor, "we've just put a huge debt on our children to pay people in the present."

 

Biden Visits Border

Both Sides unhappy with his Moderate positions.  

I will never understand the Conservative "Open Border" silliness since the vast majority of people are caught and processed per the US laws.

And though the Biden admin apparently encouraged desperate people with their silence.  The GOPers certainly did not solve the problem when they were in charge.

Not sure what to do about desperate people just showing up by the MILLIONS, but making this mess a political game is just so WRONG...  They are humans and our religions call them our neighbors, brothers and sisters...

GOP Disrepects Officers

GOP skips honoring officers being injured and killed.  What is WRONG with these people?

I am so embarrassed again... :-(

GOP Speaker Debacle

 "Chaos Politicians" cause dysfunction, no surprise here. John Boehner explained it well.

Politico’s Heidi Przybyla recalled that in his 2021 memoir, former Republican speaker John Boehner said of this faction: “What they’re really interested in is chaos.… They want to throw sand in the gears of the hated federal government until it fails and they’ve finally proved that it’s beyond saving.” And they are tied tightly to right-wing media: “Every time they vote down a bill, they get another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio,” he said. “Its a narcissistic—and dangerous—feedback loop.”

On the other hand are Republicans like the one who spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper last night, saying that the holdouts want “procedural trickery that no one in America gives a damn about, but that might give these few loudmouths just a little bit more of the attention and power they crave…. None of these narcissists—and that’s what they are, pure narcissists—did a damn thing to help us win the majority. Nothing. If anything, many of them were liabilities, requiring outside help from Kevin McCarthy, ironically. So they contribute nothing to the team, and then have the audacity to demand outsize influence and power.”

The statement is important; equally important is that the source wanted to stay anonymous.

Oh well... I guess the conservative voters are getting the dysfunction they wanted... :-)

Links to Trump Taxes

If you are interested.  Or over here. I am sure HAPPY the Congress helped Trump to keep his promise to release them. :-)

And what about his "donating" his salary? :-O

Wisdom of Peter Lynch

 1. "In the stock market, the most important organ is the stomach. It's not the brain." (Lynch explained that investors need to know their pain tolerance, and often succeed if they simply hang on to their holdings.)

2. "You've got to look in the mirror every day and say, 'What am I going to do if the market goes down 10%? What do I do if it goes down 20%? Am I going to sell? Am I going to get out?' If that's your answer, you should consider reducing your stock holdings today."

3. "Stocks aren't lottery tickets. Behind every stock is a company. If the company does well, over time the stocks do well, and vice versa. You have to look at the company — that's what you research."

4. "The public's careful when they buy a house, when they buy a refrigerator, when they buy a car. They'll work hours to save a hundred dollars on a roundtrip air ticket. Yet they'll put $5,000 or $10,000 on some zany idea they heard on the bus. That's gambling. That's not investing. That's not research. That's just total speculation."

5. "In baseball terms, you want to buy in the second or third inning and get out in the seventh or eighth." (Lynch gave the example of Walmart, which only had stores in 15% of the US as a 10-year-old public company, spent the next 30 years expanding nationwide, and its stock skyrocketed 50-fold during that period.)

6. "When the business goes from semi-crummy to better to good, I'm probably out. You sell the company that was the growth story when there's no room to grow."

7. "Theoretically, the individual's edge has improved in the last 20, 30 years versus the professional. The problem is people have so many biases. They won't look at a railroad, an oil company, a steel company. They're only going to look at companies growing 40% a year. They won't look at turnarounds. Or companies with unions. You have to really be agnostic."

8. "Long term, the stock market's a very good place to be. But more people have lost money waiting for corrections and anticipating corrections than in the actual corrections. Trying to predict market highs and lows is not productive."

9. "I think if you spent over 13 minutes a year on economics, you've wasted over 10 minutes. It's not helpful. Everybody wants to predict the future, and I've tried to call the 1-800 psychic hotlines. It hasn't helped. The only thing I would look at is what's happening right now."

Climate Change Thoughts by Jerry

A spammer hit this 2019 post and it triggered Jerry to comment.

Well, since this troll has re-opened the topic, let's take another view of this "problem." I contend it is not a problem at all, and that all the real data I can see tells me the "catastrophe" simply isn't going to happen, and that if it does it will not be "manmade" and therefore it is nothing we can actually "do something" about. Even the IPCC has lowered its average "Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity" to something almost NON-catastrophic (yet still too high by all research).

But let us assume for the moment that your blind faith belief in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is somehow real, and that we MUST "do something." Good news, we are actually doing it! Bad news, it not only hasn't made a dime's worth of difference except that it costs more and results in the occasional brownout or worse. But let's overlook that, too, and rush headlong into the bright future of 100% "renewable energy" now being mandated by our governments. Can I assume that they will also mandate that the Earth somehow produce somewhere between 200% and 1700% of the known reserves of the minerals required? If they can do that, then why not simply mandate that the seas and temperatures cease to rise?

 

Is Being GOP Bad for Your Health?

How Many Republicans Died Because the GOP Turned Against Vaccines? 

This supports what I have shown before...  Being anti-vaccine, anti-public health policy, anti-mask and lower income increases the death rates significantly.

A Chinese co-worker is concerned about the consequences of China dropping the COVID restrictions given their less effective and older vaccine.  I had a hard explaining why many American's are not keeping up with their boosters. :-O  

Oh well, Darwin explained it pretty well many years ago...  The weak and stupid die to make a stronger smarter human. :-O  

Who'll Stop the Rain?

And is this like 2000 or 2008?  I mean will it just keep slowly dropping or will it plummet?

I do not see the GOP doing anything to reduce inflation or prevent a severe recession.  Even though their 2017 unneeded tax cuts and massive COVID bailout helped create a $7.5 Trillion deficit mess.

I am pretty sure the GOP will be happy to let citizens suffer in preparation for the 2024 elections. So I am still betting on a CRASH... :-(