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OK,<br>
<br>
That seemed to work.<br>
<br>
If you hit your "Reply To" button it should now reply to the list
instead of replying to the individual who sent the original message.<br>
<br>
If it works for everyone else, I'll dump the acknowledgment
notification.<br>
<br>
B.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Bill Effros wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4981CE47.80000@effros.com" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Rik,
I'll never get as good as Michael, no matter how much I practice.
But I should be able to get this list under control because I was able
to do so with another list based on the R-22 list. It will just take me
longer.
It's hard to notice when correspondence moves off-list and starts going
back-channel. I'm on it. You should get an acknowledgment every time
you post to the list. (I know I do.) I'll turn that off as soon as I
get things under control.
B.
Rik Sandberg wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Thanks Bill,
Looks like your setup is going fine so far. Getting as good as Michael
might take a bit of practice.
I hope your town is smart enough to figure out that deferring payment,
even at 0 interest just means that future spending will have to be
reduced by the amount it takes to service that debt. And we all know
how likely a reduction in spending is. No matter how we wiggle around,
there still ain't no free lunch.
Anybody got directions to Galt's Gulch?
Rik
"There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate
preparation to cope with a statistical universe." ... Robert Heinlein
Bill Effros wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Rik,
Good to see you. Trying to get this list under control--I'm nowhere
near as good at it as Michael. Bear with me, I'll get it functioning.
The Town of Greenwich is getting very close to 0% interest.
We just borrowed money at 0.38%.
That's because the Town of Greenwich pays as it goes, or at least it
used to, and we have unbelievable credit ratings.
Of course, some genius in Town Government suggested that since the
money was close to free (by the way 11 top Wall Street Firms bid on
these bonds--no one had ever seen rates this close to 0) why didn't
we borrow and spend more of it!
I hope cooler heads have prevailed.
When you live in a place where virtually none of your local taxes go
toward interest payments, it's remarkable how far your tax dollars
can go.
Bill Effros
Rik Sandberg wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Brad,
Do you suppose the Fed will give me a zero percent interest loan so
... uh, nevermind ....
Doesn't anyone understand compound interest anymore?? We have to be
approaching the point where the interest costs we pay each year now
would have covered the whole budget from probably just a few years
back. And for all that we get what??? Oh yeah, the opportunity to
borrow yet more money.
Looking for Galt's Gulch these days.
Rik
"There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or
inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." ...
Robert Heinlein
Letters to the Editor wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">How much will it cost?
You've heard numbers tossed around about how much the "stimulus" bill
will cost each taxpayer, but how much will it cost you personally?
First, determine what percentage tax payer you are - here's a rough
guide (total household income) -
Top 1% $~350,000
Top 5% $~150,000
Top 10% $~100,000
Top 25% $~64,000
Top 50% $~31,000
Next, find your percentage bracket in the attached table - that's how
much the government is going to borrow and how much YOU will repay,
plus interest.
Remember, only 5% of the spending is for infrastructure. If you're in
the bottom 50%, this is a no-brainer -your rebates will offset your
indebtedness by more than 10 fold.
Joe the Plumber got it right!
Brad
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Brad Haslett <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:flybrad@gmail.com"><flybrad@gmail.com></a>
wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Congratulations to the opposition party for growing a pair (even
though that may not apply to my Congressman Marsha Blackburn).
Taylor, a Blue Dog Democrat from my adopted district of Gulf Coast
Mississippi and Cooper, a Dem as well from East Tennessee both voted
nay.
Now it's on to the Senate to see how much more can be added to this
socialist spending bill with some highways thrown in for good
measure.
I suggest the minority Senators filibuster - just reading the damn
thing on the floor should suffice.
Would you like fries with that CrapSandwich?
Brad
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Letters to the Editor
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com"><swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">You're beating a dead horse here.
Many of us have said the same thing for years. To no avail.
Pat Buchanan (whether you agree with him or not you've got to
acknowledge
THIS man knows how to write a speech) quoted somebody saying
"Where there is
no solution, there is no problem." An interesting perspective.
I see no solution to the current situation. Politically it's
impossible to
admit this and win elections, so you get a lot of silly stuff on
the road to
the inevitable.
B.
Letters to the Editor wrote:
Bill,
Speaking of W's problems, I'm attaching an article from 2005. Where
the hell did THAT money go? So let me get this right: Republican
pork is bad but doubling down with Democratic pork is good? Is
there a
new party on the horizon? Is it time we started the Sanity party?
The world has gone mad!
Brad
-----------------
The Republican pork barrel
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | August 4, 2005
AT $286.4 BILLION, the highway bill just passed by Congress is the
most expensive public works legislation in US history. In
addition to
funding the interstate highway system and other federal
transportation
programs, it sets a new record for pork-barrel spending, earmarking
$24 billion for a staggering 6,376 pet projects, spread among
virtually every congressional district in the land. The enormous
bill
-- 1,752 pages long -- wasn't made public until just before it was
brought to a vote, and so, as The New York Times noted, ''it is safe
to bet that none of the lawmakers, not even the main authors, had
read
the entire package."
That didn't stop them from voting for it. It passed 412 to 8 in the
House, 91 to 4 in the Senate.
Huge as the bill was, it wasn't quite huge enough for Representative
Don Young of Alaska, chairman of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee. ''It's not as big as what he'd like," a
committee spokesman said, ''but is still a very good bill and will
play a major role in addressing transportation and highway needs."
One wonders what more Young could have wanted. The bill funnels
upward
of $941 million to 119 earmarked projects in Alaska, including $223
million for a mile-long bridge linking an island with 50
residents to
the town of Ketchikan on the mainland. Another $231 million is
earmarked for a new bridge in Anchorage, to be named -- this is
specified in the legislation -- Don Young's Way. There is $3 million
for a film ''about infrastructure that demonstrates advancements in
Alaska, the last frontier." The bill even doffs its cap to Young's
wife, Lu: The House formally called it ''The Transportation
Equity Act
-- a Legacy for Users," or TEA-LU.
Christmas didn't come early just for Alaska. Meander through the
bill's endless line items and you find a remarkable variety of
''highway" projects, many of which have nothing to do with highways:
Horse riding facilities in Virginia ($600,000). A snowmobile
trail in
Vermont ($5.9 million). Parking for New York's Harlem Hospital ($8
million). A bicycle and pedestrian trail in Tennessee ($532,000). A
daycare center and park-and-ride facility in Illinois ($1.25
million).
Dust control mitigation for rural Arkansas ($3 million). The
National
Packard Museum in Ohio ($2.75 million). A historical trolley project
in Washington ($200,000). And on and on and on.
If Carl Sandburg had lived to see this massive avalanche of bacon
greasing its way down Capitol Hill, he would have named Congress,
not
Chicago, the hog butcher for the world. Or perhaps he would simply
have seconded P.J. O'Rourke's timeless observation in
''Parliament of
Whores": ''Giving money and power to government is like giving
whiskey
and car keys to teenage boys."
Arizona Senator John McCain, who voted no, called the bill a
''monstrosity" and wondered whether it will ever be possible to
restore fiscal sanity to Congress. If ''the combination of war,
record
deficits, and the largest public debt in the country's history"
can't
break lawmakers' addiction to spending, he asked, what can? ''It
would
seem that this Congress can weather any storm thrown at it, as
long as
we have our pork life-saver to cling to."
McCain is a Republican, and it might surprise younger readers to
learn
that spending discipline was once a basic Republican principle. Hard
to believe in this era of bloated Republican budgets and the
biggest-spending presidential administration in 40 years -- but
true.
Once upon a time Republicans actually described themselves with
pride
as fiscal conservatives. That was one of the reasons they opposed
the
promiscuous use of pork-barrel earmarks, which are typically used to
bypass legislative standards, reward political favorites, and assert
political control over state and local affairs.
For example, Ronald Reagan vetoed the 1987 highway bill because it
included 121 earmarks and was $10 billion over the line he had drawn
in the sand. ''I haven't seen this much lard since I handed out blue
ribbons at the Iowa State Fair," he said. President Bush is a great
admirer of Reagan's record in foreign affairs. Too bad he shows so
little interest in following the Gipper's fiscal lead as well.
When Bush ran for president in 2000, he described his Democratic
opponent, Vice President Al Gore, as a reckless high-roller who
would
unbalance the budget. ''If the vice president gets elected," Bush
said, ''the era of big government being over is over."
Five years later, what is over is the GOP reputation for fiscal
sobriety. Republicans today are simply the other big-government
party
-- just as capable of squandering public funds, and just as eager to
fill barrels with pork, as their fellow-spendthrifts across the
aisle.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jacoby@globe.com">jacoby@globe.com</a>.
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Letters to the Editor
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com"><swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com></a> wrote:
No doubt it's pork barrel spending by another name.
But there isn't enough money in the universe to make it work, and
no place
left to take it from.
Everyone will tap dance for a while, after which it will no
longer be W's
problem.
When Caterpillar cuts 20,000 jobs the problem is far greater than
currency
manipulation.
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns...
On the other hand, maybe they do less damage this way.
B.
Letters to the Editor wrote:
Bill,
Only 45 billion is slated for infrastructure. To put that into
perspective, 120 billion was allocated for Katrina recovery. The
last
time I checked (about a year ago), roughly 70% of that money had
been
spent - enough to provide two 2000 square foot houses with a
brand new
SUV in each driveway for every family displaced by Katrina. There's
roughly 400,000 people in NOLA and another 80,000 STILL displaced by
Katrina. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical that 45 billion doing
much for infrastructure.
This is pure pork politics and a poorly disguised attempt to buy the
next election, as if there wasn't enough money spent on the last
election for The One to say "I won".
You're dead-on right about Hoover and most certainly correct about
inflation. Hoover tried to engage in trade protectionist
policies and
it made the Great Depression much worse. Our new Tax Cheat in
charge,
Geitner, ran his mouth off against the Chinese about manipulating
their currency (we all know they do it but you're not supposed to
make
them lose face over it) and they showed Geitner and Obama who's
really
in charge by running the RNB down the max range overnight. I
guess the
Chinese really do live by the Golden Rule; he who has the gold makes
the rules.
Never underestimate the stupidity of collective behavior.
Brad
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:37 AM, Letters to the Editor
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com"><swiftwatergazette@mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com></a> wrote:
Brad,
The only way the recession will be over by 2010 is if people start
calling it by its true name. This is a depression. It's nothing
like
the cyclical hiccups we have seen since the end of WWII.
The current governmental thrashing is pointless, except to the
extent
that the Democrats will have to accept responsibility for the
situation. The next Republican presidential candidate will run
on the
slogan "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"
Let's hope some of this money goes to useful stuff. I never
thought I
would get as much use out of the Interstate Highway Program when
it was
first proposed. Now I regard it as almost a miracle of convenience.
I'd love to see NYC get money for its subway system.
Our children won't pay for this stuff, we will. Our kids will
pay back
these debts with massively inflated cheap dollars. The standard of
living of older people will fall as their retirement savings are
worth
less and less in inflated terms. Burger flippers will make
$50,000 a
year, while retirees will grumble about how it gets harder and
harder to
make ends meet.
Serves us right.
I can't figure out how to put an end to the depression without a
war to
soak up excess capacity and reduce population while destroying
manufacturing over-capacity.
I haven't seen where anyone else has figured it out, either.
Obama is employing the same strategies as Herbert Hoover.
Bill Effros
Letters to the Editor wrote:
Well Boys and Girls, by the time you read this the vote may be
over -
The Great Generational Theft Act of 2009 may be law. The children of
the Greatest Generation can't stomach a single downturn in the
business cycle after two decades of prosperity, unbridled
borrowing on
over-inflated assets, and uncontrolled spending. So these spoiled
brats want more borrowing, more spending (only this time were
going to
let Washington, DC do the spending), and anything but short term
pain
and suffering for a condition of our own making - let our
children and
grandchildren pay for our sins. Our new President says we must put
politics aside and then tells the opposition party, "I won", when
challenged on the wisdom of borrowing $825 Billion (over a TRILLION)
with interest. Most (80%) of this money won't be spent until after
2010 when the recession should be over anyway, so this isn't really
about economics, its pure pork politics, plain and simple. People
truly do get the government they deserve.
Disgusting!
Brad
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