Bernie Sanders gives an amazing speech.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
political reading. always important.
Read these two articles. One an opinion that I, sadly, happen to agree with. And the other, from PRI's 'The World'.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Freezing Out Hope
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 2, 2010
After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?
On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him.
So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.
READ THE REST HERE
And here is an article with a little perspective about the deficit and how we ARE NOT comparable to what's happening in Ireland or Greece.
By Jason Margolis from PRI's The World
President Obama’s deficit-reduction commission is trying to dramatically trim federal deficits in the coming decade. But how does U.S. debt compare with other nations? The U.S. public debt is north of $9 trillion dollars.
On its own, it doesn’t say much. But that number does mean a lot when it’s put in context. Economists like to measure what they call the “net debt to GDP ratio.” That’s basically the amount of money we, the taxpayers, owe compared to the size of the economy. That figure is about 60 percent. (we owe 60 cents out of every dollar, that is)
“At the end of World War II, America’s net debt to GDP ratio was 113 percent, and the equivalent ratio for Great Britain at the end of World War II was more than 250 percent,” said Economist Lee Branstetter from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “Even if you compare our current net debt to GDP ratio to other advanced industrial economies that are not fighting major wars like Belgium or Japan, it’s still not particularly large.”
Today, the United States is somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to debt ratios.
But at the simplest level: What does this figure really tell us? And is running up a big debt such a bad thing?
Read the rest of the article here.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Freezing Out Hope
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 2, 2010
After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?
On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him.
So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.
READ THE REST HERE
And here is an article with a little perspective about the deficit and how we ARE NOT comparable to what's happening in Ireland or Greece.
By Jason Margolis from PRI's The World
President Obama’s deficit-reduction commission is trying to dramatically trim federal deficits in the coming decade. But how does U.S. debt compare with other nations? The U.S. public debt is north of $9 trillion dollars.
On its own, it doesn’t say much. But that number does mean a lot when it’s put in context. Economists like to measure what they call the “net debt to GDP ratio.” That’s basically the amount of money we, the taxpayers, owe compared to the size of the economy. That figure is about 60 percent. (we owe 60 cents out of every dollar, that is)
“At the end of World War II, America’s net debt to GDP ratio was 113 percent, and the equivalent ratio for Great Britain at the end of World War II was more than 250 percent,” said Economist Lee Branstetter from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “Even if you compare our current net debt to GDP ratio to other advanced industrial economies that are not fighting major wars like Belgium or Japan, it’s still not particularly large.”
Today, the United States is somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to debt ratios.
But at the simplest level: What does this figure really tell us? And is running up a big debt such a bad thing?
Read the rest of the article here.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
The Goodness
It's been busy, as usual. And there has been a whole lot of goodness along with a decent amount of dealing with the regular old day in and day out grind... but when I think of this family and of Thanksgiving and Christmas...this is what comes to mind. Making things, being outside, reading, eating, snuggling, listening to music...even if it's Frank Zappa . I realize that these little video snippets make it all look picture perfect awesome which we all know is never the case in real life. But the fact that we can have so many delicious moments, many more than I could or would ever capture in a picture or video...well, that truly makes me thankful!!!
A whole lot of gooooooooood.
("thank you universe for most this amazing day and the leaping greenly spirits of trees and...")
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