WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED
ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR THREE
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Name
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Published
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OVERVIEW
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 14
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Dec
18, 2012
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 15
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Jan. 02, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16
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Jan. 08, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16 EXTRA
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Jan. 11, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 17
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Jan. 15, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 18
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Jan. 22, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 19
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Jan. 29, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 20
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Feb. 05, 2013
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IN THIS
ISSUE
1. About guns.
2. Stats about debt ceilings.
3. Suspension of debt ceiling.
4. Growing the family farm.
5. The urgency of growth.
ABOUT GUNS
The NRA is arguing
that background checks would do no good because the criminals will ignore
them.
That is the whole
point of background checks. If they try
to buy a gun and they show up on a background check, then they don't get the
gun.
Gabrielle Gifford
testified before Congress and gave a profound and impressive testimony. She concluded by saying "Be bold, be courageous. Americans are counting on you."
Since the Newtown Mississippi river .
As you might expect, the largest number is on the east coast, from the
Carolinas to Maine Oklahoma and Texas San Diego
~~~
Interesting
note about
raising the debt ceiling.
Democrats have raised
it 30 times. Republicans have raised it
49 times.
President Reagan
raised it the most of any President. He
raised it 18 times, for a 67% increase.
President Obama has raised it 6 times for a 31% increase. Now,
tell me, which one is the spending party.
Senate
votes to temporarily suspend federal debt limit
By Lori
Montgomery,
The Washington
Congress approves lifting the
threat of a
government default until early August.
Congress gave final approval Thursday to a plan to temporarily suspend the
legal limit on the national debt, permitting the Treasury Department to keep
borrowing and lifting the threat of a government default until August.
The measure, approved by the Senate 64 to 34, now goes to the White House
for President Obama’s signature. Without congressional action, the
administration had been warning that the Treasury would run out of money to pay
the nation’s bills by early March.
The House passed the bill last week, days after
Republican leaders announced that they would not try to use the moment as
leverage in their battle with Obama over the federal budget. But House leaders said that they would not
vote to raise the $16.4 trillion debt limit — a politically dicey move for
which they have in the past demanded deep spending cuts.
Instead, they offered a novel plan to suspend enforcement of the limit
through May 18. Under the measure, the Treasury Department can simply ignore
the debt ceiling and keep borrowing to cover the cost of federal obligations.
On May 19, the debt limit will kick back in and automatically reset at a
higher level. Treasury officials can
then begin taking what they call “extraordinary measures” to continue paying
the nation’s bills.
Analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center predict that the Treasury will run
up about $450 billion in additional debt through mid-May and that the date of a
potential default will be postponed until August — “with a realistic chance of
coming even later.” In recent days,
administration officials have advised lawmakers that the center’s analysis
matches Treasury calculations.
The measure also requires lawmakers in each chamber to adopt a budget
blueprint by April 15 or have their paychecks withheld and placed in escrow
until this session of Congress ends in 2015. The Senate has not approved a budget plan
since 2009, when Democrats controlled both chambers.
While a large majority of House Republicans voted for the measure, most
Senate Republicans voted no — along with one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also voted against the bill after
the Senate rejected four GOP amendments, including two that would have forced
additional spending cuts.
“As a result, the [minority] leader simply couldn’t support the bill,”
McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook said.
Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the bill “sets an important
precedent — that the full faith and credit of the United States
It remains to be seen whether that’s true. Even as the White House and congressional
leaders begin crafting spending plans for the fiscal year that begins in
October, they face new fiscal deadlines next month.
On March 1, deep, automatic spending cuts are set to hit the Pentagon and other federal
agencies, potentially damaging the nation’s economy. And on March 27, lawmakers face the threat of
a government shutdown when a broad funding bill expires.
And sometime this summer, the debt ceiling will once again need to be
raised. This week, Senate Finance
Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) met with lawmakers in both parties to
discuss a possible path forward: a negotiated debt-limit increase that would be
paired with fast-track procedures for overhauling the tax code, as well as
health and retirement programs.
That idea appeals to many Senate Republicans. Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.
But, Toomey said, “On our side, we have very broad agreement that we’re not
interested in more revenue. We’re done
with that. The other side does not share that view. And so, it’s not obvious how all this gets resolved.”
~~~
4
Lessons for Growing a
Family Farm
Shannon Hayes
Yes! Magazine / Op-Ed
Published:
Sunday 3 February 2013
NOTE from
FLOYD
At the peak of farming in America
If there’s a romantic image that tugs at our heart
strings as much as the thought of homegrown tomatoes, it’s that of the
multi-generational family farm.
In a culture that has spurned the union of the generations—that
frowns upon the thirty something living in his parents’ basement, mocks the new
family who moves in with Grandma, offers condolence to the empty-nesters who
take in an aging parent, builds television sitcoms about the interpersonal
conflicts between married couples and the in-laws, and peddles financial
products to discourage elders from ever being a “burden”—the family farm has
been America’s great exception to the now-expected independent nuclear unit.
Farms proudly advertise the number of generations who
have lived on the same land; signs are hung on the side of barns to commemorate
the 100th continuous year of business within the same family; awards are handed
out, stories written, legends passed down within rural communities celebrating
the differences from father to son, mother to daughter.
And in an era when the
rest of the country is discovering that breaking ourselves into nuclear units
is coming at an ecological, financial, and emotional cost, the
multigenerational family farm feels like the last cultural example we can turn
to as a reminder of what might make for a viable future, whether the multiple
generations are in the city, the suburbs, or on the land.
But this week I heard three painful stories about the
tensions among the agrarian generations. One young family, now indebted more than
$500,000 from an effort to take over the family farm, is being crippled from
making sustainable changes on the land by both excessive financial burdens, and
a lack of physical and emotional support from the older generation. Another
family with children, who’d invested several years in building an organic
enterprise on the family farm and buying out the parents, is finally abandoning
its dreams and is trying to find land elsewhere, because the intergenerational
conflicts were insurmountable. And a
third couple, who moved back to take over the family farm a few years ago, has
just moved out again, their efforts at reviving the land having met too much
resistance. Their marriage is on the cusp of breaking up, too.
I know my generation can
be a nuisance. We want everything instantly. We grew up with little to no training in
financial literacy. We learned that controlling expenses wasn’t as critical as
earning a big paycheck. And when the big
paycheck never showed up, we were sold a bill of goods that we could afford
more debt than was realistic. At the same time, we’re questioning how hard we
want to work. We don’t ubiquitously buy
into the idea that logging 80-100 hours of labor in a week is the best way to
take care of family. And to add to
matters, we’re expressing a lot of annoyance at the detritus bequeathed to us
by our parents and grandparents: depleted fossil fuel reserves, excess carbon
in the atmosphere, polluted water, environmental toxins, lost topsoil,
nutrient-deficient foods, and the chronic illnesses that ensue from these
things.
At the same time, the older generations have their
burdens, too. The 401ks that seemed so cushy a few years back aren’t quite so
robust. The vision of “golden years”
spent golfing and playing tennis in sunny Florida
I moved back to my family’s farm in 1996, at the age of
22. While I spent a few years in graduate school, I came home every weekend and
summer, and have been an active part of the business since that time. In the 17 years I’ve been involved with Sap
Bush Hollow, I fell in love with a man, convinced him to move here to start a
life together, began a family, and bit by bit have grown more deeply into the
family business. Bob and I realized
early on that my parents were too young and vibrant for us to simply “step in
and take over,” and our different skill sets and personalities have required
that we find unusual ways to blend with the family business. Some of our livelihood from the farm comes
from actual labor, some of it comes from our own entrepreneurial ventures. We don’t live in the same house as my parents,
which has its benefits and drawbacks.
It isn’t all butterflies and rainbows here, that’s for
certain. We have arguments, we storm off, hang up on each other, and
occasionally sit down and have some good cries. But after nearly 20 years, we’re still here,
still working together on this business; still in agreement that this family
farm offers the best possible life for all of us. Along the way, there have been a few lessons
and practices that have really made a big difference in the viability of our
intergenerational cooperation:
1.
The
stated goal of the business. Posted on the wall of the farm office is a piece of
paper, typed up maybe 25 years ago. Mom and Dad wrote it to express their goals
and dreams. And the number one goal at the top of the page reads: We want to
create a business that one or both of our children would want to run. It’s
not saying that the kids have to take it over. It’s just saying that the
quality of the venture needs to reflect the needs and desires of the next
generation. Thus, every decision they make on that farm gets tested against
this top goal. As the next generation, I have a sense of security that my
thoughts and ideas matter, that Bob’s and my quality of life is critical to the
success of Sap Bush Hollow.
2.
No one
“owns” the land. I remember the day a neighboring farmer drove into the
barnyard to talk to Mom and Dad about the financial potential of signing a
lease to allow hydro-fracking on our land. Dad shrugged his shoulders and said he
couldn’t help him. “It’s not my land,”
he said.“Isn’t your name on the deed?”“Doesn’t matter.” He pointed to Saoirse
and Ula, then about 5 and 2, who were tumbling across the front field. “It’s
not mine. It’s theirs.”And that’s the
tone around here. None of us owns it. It
is forever owned by the next generation. Whoever has their name on the deed is a
temporary steward. Thus, while Mom and
Dad are counting on the farm to sustain them as part of their retirement, the
land is not a source of retirement income. It is a resource for each successive
generation. When Mom and Dad made a
choice to buy a farm, they weren’t buying a retirement asset. They were
securing a resource for the family and its subsequent generations. For Bob and me, this means we’ll never “own”
the land, either. We derive benefit from the resources it offers, and it is our
job to bridge to the next generation, and to help make sure Mom and Dad will be
able to be comfortable in their retirement, without having to sell that land.
3.
Avoid
debt. Keeping the farm in the family is a lot easier when the
bank doesn’t have a lien on the property. At Sap Bush Hollow, we’ve been masters at
diversifying our income with small ventures that are not capital-intensive,
which keeps us in control of the money and out of debt. And all of us are pretty
skilled at living on the cheap. One of the many benefits is that there is a lot
less stress between the generations. Interestingly, since thrift and frugality is a
defining quality of our family culture, we find it easy to be generous and
trusting with each other. No one worries
about someone else wasting money.
4.
The most
important “product” is the next generation. There is an agreement across the
family that Saoirse and Ula are number one. This means that homeschool is not squeezed
into the interstices between loading cattle and chasing pigs. The teaching
space and time is sacred. Family meals are of paramount importance. Adequate rest to allow for a calm, happy
family life is critical. And their safety matters above all else. As the parents, this makes Bob’s and my job a
lot easier. We don’t feel as though our fidelity to the family business is
questioned when we need to honor our commitments to our children. The person who leaves farm work to prepare the
daily meal, teach the kids, or maintain the home is as valuable as the one
making hay.
We didn’t start out in our family venture knowing all
these rules for success. Over the years,
we’ve grown into them, and a lot of the lessons were learned the hard way,
through emotionally trying experience.
I’d be a fool to suggest that these were the only keys to
success, and I’d be even more of a fool to argue that, because of these
attributes, our farm will be “sustainable.” No one ever really knows the answer to that
question. All I can say is that for 17
years, life has been good. So good, in
fact, that I can say I am happy where I am, and that everyone in the Sap Bush
Hollow family seems to share the daily intentions to continue the quality of
life we have.
Certainly, these words cannot salve the pain of those
three farm families I mentioned earlier. What’s done is done. We’ve entered an era that asks us to un-learn
the last 60 years of cultural conditioning, and to reclaim wisdom from
generations that are nearly gone. It isn’t easy, and our lessons are hard-won.
But hopefully we will hold onto the rediscovered wisdom this time, pass it
along to our children, and enable each successive generation to grow up
comfortable in walking sustainably on this earth.
~~~
The
urgency of growth
By E.J. Dionne , Washington
Feb. 4, 2013
If you care about deficits, you should want our
economy to grow faster. If you care
about lifting up the poor and reducing unemployment, you should want our
economy to grow faster. And if you are a committed capitalist and hope to make
more money, you should want our economy to grow faster.
The moment’s highest priority should be speeding economic growth and ending the waste, human and economic, left by the Great Recession. But you would never know this because the conversation in our nation’s capital is being held hostage by a ludicrous cycle of phony fiscal deadlines driven by a misplaced belief that the only thing we have to fear is the budget deficit.
Let’s call a halt to this madness. If we don’t move the economy to a better place, none of the fiscal projections will matter. The economic downturn ballooned the deficit. Growth will move the numbers in the right direction.
Moreover, the whole point of an economy is to provide everyone with real opportunities for gainful employment and economic advance -- the generational “relay” that San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro affectingly described at last year’s Democratic convention. When we talk only about deficits, we take our eyes off the prize.
But there is good news. Gradually, establishment thinking is moving toward a new consensus that puts growth first and looks for deficit reduction over time. In the last few months, middle-of-the-road and moderately conservative voices have warned that if we cut the deficit too quickly, too soon, we could throw ourselves back into the economic doldrums -- and increase the very deficit we are trying to reduce.
Here, for example, is excellent advice from the deservedly respected (and thoroughly pro-market) economic columnist Martin Wolf, offered last week in The Financial Times: “The federal government is not on the verge of bankruptcy. If anything, the tightening has been too much and too fast. The fiscal position is also not the most urgent economic challenge. It is far more important to promote recovery. The challenges in the longer term are to raise revenue while curbing the cost of health. Meanwhile, people, just calm down.”
“Calm down” is exactly what we need to do. We have been inundated with apocalyptic prophecies about our debt levels. While they come from the center as well as the right, Republicans are using them to turn the next two years into a carnival of contrived crises. These will (1) make normal governing impossible -- no agency can plan when budgets are always up in the air; (2) distract us -- we need to think about measures, such as an Infrastructure Bank, that would promote prosperity now and into the future; and (3) drive business people crazy -- no enterprise would put itself through the contortions that are becoming part of Washington’s routine.
Only if you believe that deficits mean the end is near can any of this be justified. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, perfectly encapsulated the effort to diminish the importance of all else (including growth) when he declared recently that “deficit and debt” constitute the “transcendent issue of our era.”
No, it’s not. As Bruce Bartlett, the bravely dissident conservative economics specialist wrote a few days ago: “In fact, our long-term deficit situation is not nearly as severe as even many budget experts believe. The problem is that they are looking at recent history and near-term projections that are overly impacted by one-time factors related to the economic crisis and massive Republican tax cuts that lowered revenues far below normal.”
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned in TheWashington
You have to hope that President Obama will use his State of the Union message to speak forcefully for growth and the public investments that will foster it. But sensible people also need to rise up and tell the congressional doom-mongers that they have to calm down and end their wholly destructive campaign to turn our great system of self-rule into a government by deadline and emergency.
The moment’s highest priority should be speeding economic growth and ending the waste, human and economic, left by the Great Recession. But you would never know this because the conversation in our nation’s capital is being held hostage by a ludicrous cycle of phony fiscal deadlines driven by a misplaced belief that the only thing we have to fear is the budget deficit.
Let’s call a halt to this madness. If we don’t move the economy to a better place, none of the fiscal projections will matter. The economic downturn ballooned the deficit. Growth will move the numbers in the right direction.
Moreover, the whole point of an economy is to provide everyone with real opportunities for gainful employment and economic advance -- the generational “relay” that San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro affectingly described at last year’s Democratic convention. When we talk only about deficits, we take our eyes off the prize.
But there is good news. Gradually, establishment thinking is moving toward a new consensus that puts growth first and looks for deficit reduction over time. In the last few months, middle-of-the-road and moderately conservative voices have warned that if we cut the deficit too quickly, too soon, we could throw ourselves back into the economic doldrums -- and increase the very deficit we are trying to reduce.
Here, for example, is excellent advice from the deservedly respected (and thoroughly pro-market) economic columnist Martin Wolf, offered last week in The Financial Times: “The federal government is not on the verge of bankruptcy. If anything, the tightening has been too much and too fast. The fiscal position is also not the most urgent economic challenge. It is far more important to promote recovery. The challenges in the longer term are to raise revenue while curbing the cost of health. Meanwhile, people, just calm down.”
“Calm down” is exactly what we need to do. We have been inundated with apocalyptic prophecies about our debt levels. While they come from the center as well as the right, Republicans are using them to turn the next two years into a carnival of contrived crises. These will (1) make normal governing impossible -- no agency can plan when budgets are always up in the air; (2) distract us -- we need to think about measures, such as an Infrastructure Bank, that would promote prosperity now and into the future; and (3) drive business people crazy -- no enterprise would put itself through the contortions that are becoming part of Washington’s routine.
Only if you believe that deficits mean the end is near can any of this be justified. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, perfectly encapsulated the effort to diminish the importance of all else (including growth) when he declared recently that “deficit and debt” constitute the “transcendent issue of our era.”
No, it’s not. As Bruce Bartlett, the bravely dissident conservative economics specialist wrote a few days ago: “In fact, our long-term deficit situation is not nearly as severe as even many budget experts believe. The problem is that they are looking at recent history and near-term projections that are overly impacted by one-time factors related to the economic crisis and massive Republican tax cuts that lowered revenues far below normal.”
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned in The
You have to hope that President Obama will use his State of the Union message to speak forcefully for growth and the public investments that will foster it. But sensible people also need to rise up and tell the congressional doom-mongers that they have to calm down and end their wholly destructive campaign to turn our great system of self-rule into a government by deadline and emergency.
~~~
If athe good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you
again on Tuesday February 12, 2013.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL
&
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Floyd
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