Give me a fish and I eat for a day.� Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. Now that the major party conventions are over, I�m dismayed� over the complete neglect of one of the most important industries and pressure� groups in America: recreational fishing and fisherpersons. As this is an�activity…
Read More »
Today, we’re going for a three-fer! We’re going to describe how we can painlessly cut 1 out of every 14 dollars out of the current year’s federal government budget deficit, while simultaneously improving the fiscal situation for the government’s Social Security disability insurance trust fund. Oh, and to make it a three-fer, all while…
Read More »
On August 31, total U.S. government debt surpassed $16,000,000,000,000—that�s $16 trillion—for the first time, according to the Treasury Department. The exact amount of the debt on August 31 was $16,015,769,788,215.80, a full $25,000,000,000 � that�s $25 billion—more than what it was the day before on August 30. So the debt is now much more…
Read More »
On August 23, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) declared that some 40 miles of levees protecting California�s capital of Sacramento and 15 other areas do not meet federal maintenance criteria. Therefore they are not eligible for federal aid if damaged in a storm. Local agencies, however, see contradictions in USACE policy. The…
Read More »
�Solyndra�s power solutions offer strong return on investment and make great business sense.� That is a rather strange claim for the website of Solyndra Inc., accessed on August 29, 2012 no less. Some history is in order. Solyndra was the first renewable energy firm to get federal stimulus money and bagged $535 million in…
Read More »
We’re going to make a point today, simply by putting three very recent stories side by side by side! First up, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman’s reflections on spending and growth posted at his New York Times-based blog The Conscience of a Liberal, which we’ve excerpted in whole given their brevity: First-quarter growth results…
Read More »
National unemployment is more than 8 percent and 10.7 percent in California. In these conditions many baby boomers, especially those whose unemployment benefits have run out, have opted to take Social Security at age 62. They may find themselves facing federally enforced poverty. The Social Security monthly payout at 62 is substantially less than…
Read More »
According to ZeroHedge, who has been tracking the U.S. Treasury’s debt auctions, it’s very likely that another grim milestone for the U.S. national debt has been surpassed, as it now exceeds 16 TRILLION dollars: November 16, 2011 was a historic date: that’s when the US officially surpassed $15 trillion in debt for the first…
Read More »
A majority of Americans approves of the Transportation Safety Authority, according to a recent Gallup poll. A full 54 percent of Americans say the TSA is doing an excellent or good job and 30 percent rating the TSA as only �fair.� Only 12 percent of Americans, according to the poll, said the TSA was…
Read More »
Asking the question “Is the U.S. a single-payer system?“, Jason Shafrin, the Healthcare Economist, points to a report issued by the California Healthcare Foundation, which provides a wealth of information on the topic of health care spending in the U.S. We found the following facts presented in the report to be especially interesting: The…
Read More »