OBOF TYMHM & MORE PART 33

WELCOME TO OPINIONS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

&

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR THREE

 

Name	Published
OVERVIEW
OBOF & TYMHM PART 14	Dec  18, 2012
OBOF & TYMHM PART 15	Jan.  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16	Jan.  08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16 EXTRA	Jan.  11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 17	Jan.  15, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 18	Jan.  22, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 19	Jan.  29, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 20	Feb.  05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 21	Feb.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 22	Feb.  20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23	Feb.  27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23 SPECIAL	Mar.  06, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 24	Mar.  07, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25	Mar.  12, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25-EXTRA	Mar.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 26	Mar.  19, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 27	Mar.  26, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 28	Apr.   02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 29	Apr.   08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 30	Apr.   17, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 31	Apr.   23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 32	Apr.   30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 33	May   07, 2013

 

 

IN THIS ISSUE

 

1.  Introduction.

2.  Unbelievable true story.

3.  If you are a Progressive Democrat.

4.  Obama needs to hope again.

5.  Guantanamo hunger strike & Obama denounces again.

6.  Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac head replacement.

 

7.  Sequester actually increases spending

8.  Mel Watt close ties to financial industry.

9.  A good one to finish with.

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This posting has a great deal of important information that brings out the truth, in many cases, about President Obama's position and why he should not be blamed for a number of things that are laid at his door.  If, you can't read it all in one setting try to get back and learn it all.  This always puts you in a better position as a Progressive to get out the truth.

 

~~~-

A TRULY UNBELIEVABLE

 TRUE STORY

By Floyd Bowman

Publisher "Opinions Based On Facts."

May 7, 2013

 

I am going to attempt to tell you a story that is taking place right now and I am involved in it.  The entire story is complicated and covers a period of the past 3-1/2 years.  It will have to be told in a number of installments.  At this time, I am just going to give you a basic idea as to what it is about.  I am going to ask you to take my word for the facts that I provide cause I know they are facts by being involved.

 

This involves the acquisition of an item by the U. S. Military from an individual that has invented and patented it.  It is an item that saves equipment, precious time, and most important, will save lives in combat. 

 

This individual is a very honest, patriotic and unpretentious person from Owasso, Oklahoma.  He is my neighbor and I have known him for more than 23 years.  He has had lucrative offers to buy his patent and they wanted to have it made in China.  He will not have it built anywhere, except in the USA. 

 

He has been having this item produced and has been selling it at Farm & Ranch shows.  It has been accepted very well.  When he started to approach the Military he had to make one that was much larger than what was for domestic use.  His first showing was before a group of about 35 Military Engineers.  When he got done he received a standing ovation. 

 

What this man has gone through with the government is just unreal.  They are suppose to be pushing and helping small businesses, but you would never know it by the treatment he has received.

 

Next week, I am going to start at the beginning and how this invention came about.    

 

THE REASON FOR WRITING ABOUT THIS.

 

At the beginning, I said I was going to attempt to write this story.  It has become so involved, so much runaround, so much misinformation, and so deceptive that I am very upset about it.  It is my hope that by writing this in my blog, someone, someday may pick up on it and say "This has to stop." And maybe, just maybe that someone might be a person that can do something about the mistreatment this man has received. 

 

~~~

 

IF YOU ARE A PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING.

IT IS IMPORTANT.

 

By Floyd Bowman

Publisher of "Opinions Based On Facts."

May 7, 2013

 

I repeat, if you are a Progressive Democrat and you want 2014 to be the year that we take back the House of Representatives, put more than 60 Democrats in the Senate, and DEFEAT MITCH Mc  CONNELL, present Minority Leader in the Senate, we have to start work NOW and here are some of the reasons.

 

The money we saw spent last year is going to repeat even though it is a mid-term election.  The powers that be want to take over the Senate and keep the House of Representatives.  They have already started.  Also, they have already started bashing Hillary Clinton, thinking, of course, that she is the top contender for President in 2016. 

 

The Koch Brothers are trying, right now, to buy some of the leading papers in the country.  If they get them, and it looks very much as though they might. They can control the news with lies like you have never heard yet. 

 

Keep informed and talk to friends as much as possible.  We have to get the truth out.  And do all you can to plan ahead to help with donations.  We have a big bridge to cross and it will take a lot of money.

~~~

 

Obama Needs To Hope Again

May 2nd, 2013 12:00 am E. J. Dionne

 

WASHINGTON — If, a president finds himself in the role of a political scientist, he has a problem — even when his political science lesson is 100 percent accurate.

When President Obama was asked by Jonathan Karl of ABC News at his Tuesday news conference whether he still had “the juice” to get his agenda through Congress, I wish he had replied, “Lighten up.  This is the country where hope lives.”

He could have used the flow of the news to make this case.  For example, many of the senators who sided with the gun lobby against the vast majority of Americans who favor background checks — particularly Kelly Ayotte, Jeff Flake and Rob Portman — are taking enormous grief from their constituents.

This shows that one defeat on one vote is not a permanent setback when the tally in question reflects an old reality (that only hardcore gun owners care about the issue) and ignores a new reality (that supporters of gun sanity are finally mobilized, and angry).  On guns, the times are changing.

They are changing on other issues, too.  Obama’s warm praise for the decision of the NBA’s Jason Collins to come out as gay was uncontroversial.  If you think back just a decade or two, this is astonishing.  And if immigration reform is no slam-dunk, the politics have shifted sharply toward action.

Add to this a New York Times/CBS News poll released Wednesday showing that while 46 percent of Americans believe the sequester cuts will hurt the economy, only 1 in 10 thinks they will help it.  The austerity Republicans champion has few takers.

Obama lightly touched on some of these themes, but in answering Karl’s question, he seemed more impatient and analytical than optimistic.

“We understand that we’re in divided government right now,” the president said. “Republicans control the House of Representatives.  In the Senate, this habit of requiring 60 votes for even the most modest piece of legislation has gummed up the works there. … Things are pretty dysfunctional up on Capitol Hill.”  He went on to note that the base of the Republican Party “thinks that compromise with me is somehow a betrayal.  They’re worried about primaries.”

What Obama said is true to every detail.  He really is dealing with a novel situation. The GOP has moved far to the right.  The Senate no longer operates on the basis of majority rule. The strong presidents with whom Obama is often compared, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, did not face these obstacles.  In his heyday, LBJ had huge Democratic congressional majorities. The Gipper could always count on winning votes from conservative Southern Democrats who had joined Republicans regularly for many years before he took office.  Obama has every right to be frustrated: When Republicans obstruct, he takes the blame.

But getting an “A” for analysis is not the goal here.  In the areas he does control, Obama has to talk less about the hurdles he faces and more forcefully about what he’s doing to get over them.  No matter how much Congress may have tied his hands, he should not have let Guantanamo fester.  His cautious gradualism on Syria is actually popular because most Americans do not want to be pulled into another Middle East conflict. But once Obama drew a “red line” against Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, the president created an obligation to take at least some action — as the administration now seems to be doing.  And he needed to get out front in explaining himself.

In light of how important the Affordable Care Act is to his legacy, you wonder why he didn’t begin his news conference by announcing the steps the administration is taking to make it work.  Instead, he had to wax defensive in response to a question.

Obama is right that Republicans aren’t going to make anything easy for him.  But he has let them suck him into a debate about budget cuts when his task is to talk about growth. In the process, he has allowed congressional paralysis to become the dominant story in Washington.  Maybe, to use his phrase, the president needs to provide himself a “permission structure” to show that he still enjoys his job, has plans for the country’s future, and is still fighting for the people who re-elected him.

Obama’s calling card was hope.  There is more to be hopeful about right now than his own public weariness would suggest.

~~~

As Hunger Strike Spreads, Obama Again Denounces Guantanamo

Jim Lobe

Inter Press Service / News Report

Published: Wednesday 1 May 2013

 

NOTE FROM FLOYD:

 

To all who have been quite upset about Guantanamo, the following sets straight what has happened in some detail.  Whether you agree or disagree, the facts are here for your consideration.

 

 

With at least 100 detainees now participating in a three-month-old hunger strike, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday reiterated his earlier denunciations of the Guantanamo detention facility and blamed Congress for preventing its closure.

Speaking at a White House news conference, he said he has asked his staff “to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively” and promised to “re-engage with Congress to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interest of the American people. And it’s not sustainable.”

“I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he said.  “It is expensive.  It is inefficient.  It hurts us in terms of our international standing.  It lessens co-operation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists.  It needs to be closed.”

His remarks followed the announcement that the Navy has sent some 40 additional medical personnel to Guantanamo to deal with the spreading strike.

At least 21 of the strikers, five of whom have been hospitalized, are reportedly being force-fed in a procedure which the American Medical Association (AMA) has denounced as a violation of the profession’s “core ethical values."

Obama, however, indicated Tuesday that he supported these measures.  “I don’t want these individuals to die,” he said.

While welcoming Obama’s renewed commitment to close the prison, attorneys for detainees and human rights groups stressed that Obama could take a series of steps without Congress to improve the situation, notably by repatriating more than half of the remaining 166 detainees.

“Congress is certainly responsible for imposing unprecedented restrictions on detainee transfers, but President Obama still has the power to transfer men right now,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a leader in the legal battle over Guantanamo since terrorist suspects were first sent there from Afghanistan and Pakistan in early 2002.

 “He should use the certification/waiver process created by Congress to transfer detainees, starting with the 86 men who have been cleared for release,” the New York-based group said.

Under a 2012 law, the secretary of defense may order detainees returned to their homelands or to third countries if he certifies on a case-by-case basis that they will pose no future threat to U.S. national security.

Eighty-six prisoners, including 56 Yemenis, have been cleared for release by Pentagon review boards to date, but the administration has not yet certified them, apparently due to fears that if any of them are subsequently implicated in anti-U.S. terrorist activity, the political backlash could be too costly.

According to a recent U.S. intelligence study, between 16 and 27 percent of previously released detainees have participated in terrorism since they left Guantanamo.

“(The law) as written allows the president to transfer individuals if it’s in the national security interest of the United States,” noted Carlos Warner, who represents 11 detainees.  “The president’s statement made clear that Guantanamo negatively impacts our national security, (so) the question is not whether the administration has the authority to transfer innocent men, but whether it has the political courage to do so.”

Whether Obama’s strong remarks Tuesday signal a new determination on his part and that of his new Pentagon chief, Chuck Hagel, to take advantage of the certification authority under the 2012 law remains unclear, although his vow to consult with Congress suggested to some observers that he would be seeking more political cover before taking such a step.

“(U)ltimately, we’re going to need some help from Congress, and I’m going to ask some folks over there who care about fighting terrorism but also care about who we are as a people to step up and help me on it,” he said.

The administration of President George W. Bush detained a total of 779 suspected terrorists at Guantanamo but had repatriated some two-thirds of them to their homelands or third countries by the time Obama promised on his first day in office in January 2009 to close the facility within one year.

His efforts to do so, however, were blocked by Congress, which enacted legislation preventing the transfer of detainees to U.S. soil and greatly restricting the administration’s power to repatriate them, particularly to countries, such as Yemen, suffering significant internal instability.

The Obama administration itself imposed a freeze on all transfers to Yemen after the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner in December 2009 by a Nigerian national who had allegedly been trained in Yemen.

While the administration had succeeded in repatriating or resettling about 80 detainees in its first two years in office, progress ground to a halt by 2011.

Earlier this year, the State Department shut down the office of the special envoy in charge of repatriating cleared prisoners. One of a series of steps – including Obama’s failure to mention Guantanamo in his most recent inaugural and State of the Union addresses and the failure to initiate promised annual reviews of detainees who had not been cleared for repatriation.  That contributed to the deepening despair and desperation of the remaining detainees, according to both their lawyers and Pentagon officials.

The detainees “had great optimism that Guantanamo would be closed.  They were devastated …when the president backed off,” Gen. John Kelley, the head of the U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom), which has jurisdiction over the facility, told Congress last week, before the spreading hunger strike drew national attention.

In addition to the 86 detainees who have been cleared for release, nine, including the operational “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, have either been convicted or are being tried before military commissions.  That has been attacked by civil and human rights groups as lacking due process.

Another 46 detainees have been deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be tried either because the evidence against them would be inadmissible in court (due to its acquisition by torture or other illegal methods) or whose alleged acts did not amount to a crime under U.S. law.  They were designated for indefinite detention during Obama’s first term.

In his remarks Tuesday, Obama appeared to distance himself from indefinite detention, which has been denounced by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, as a violation of international human rights law.

“The notion that we’re going to continue to keep over a hundred individuals in a no-man’s land, in perpetuity, even at a time when we’ve wound down the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, we’re having success defeating Al-Qaeda core … — the idea that we would still maintain, forever, a group of individuals who have not been tried, is contrary to who we are.  It is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop,” he said.

“President Obama’s call to end indefinite detention at Guantanamo is encouraging after his long silence on the issue,” said Laura Pitter, counter-terrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch (HRW), although she also noted that he was unclear whether his critique extended to detainees deemed to dangerous to release.

~~~

A LONG AWAITED REPLACEMENT

FOR

FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC

BUT?

 

NOTE FROM FLOYD:

 

On March 7, 2012, I posted an article, in Part 31 EXTRA, relating to the housing foreclosure problem and why President Obama is unable to do anything about it.  On May 22, 2012 in posting "SS & More Part 36," I reported an update regarding foreclosures and the, almost unbelievable, status of foreclosures.  I also, repeated the posting of March 7, 2012

 

I will not repeat it again, but I will include a few points from that posting.

 

President Obama is being blamed for this mortgage and house foreclosure mess AND HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, BECAUSE OF ONE MAN, Senator Shelby of Alabama. 

 

The following is from the earlier posting and starts after showing very poor management and cover-up.

 

 

 

How do these people keep their jobs?  By having Richard Shelby around to abuse the Senate's rules.  The Senate's #1 Rule Abuser

 

Senators can put a "hold" on nominations, and Sen. Shelby has used this parliamentary trick in extraordinary ways.  He put every single Presidential nomination in the nation - all of them - on hold in 2010, just so that he could get some pork for his home state of Alabama.

 

That's right: Richard Shelby was prepared to paralyze the government to get his earmarks passed.

 

As might be expected, President Obama made a very moderate choice when he appointed Joseph Smith to replace DeMarco. Smith was the former banking commissioner for South Carolina. He had an excellent reputation as a regulator, but he also had years of experience representing bankers as an attorney.  So, he was hardly a leftist firebrand.

 

That didn't stop Shelby from claiming, with characteristic discourtesy and disrespect, that Mr. Smith would be a "lapdog" for the Administration.  Shelby then resorted to the characteristic procedural chicanery for which he has become so infamous, and killed Mr. Smith's nomination by placing another "hold" on it.

 

And that's how America's mortgages fell under the iron fist of the unelected Shelby/DeMarco regime.

 

 

So, now you can see that Obama did try to replace DeMarco and Shelby blocked it.  Now he has made another appointment for which Van Jones of MoveOn.org has written the following. 

 

However, after you read Van Jones comments, that are next, be sure to read the article that follows, which gives a different picture as to the background of Rep. Mel Watt.  It may be that Watt is the same type as DeMarco and if he is, Senator Shelby may let him be confirmed.  If Shelby, thinks this appointment will undermine his lucrative position, he may decide to put it on hold again.

 

At any rate, the President has tried twice to replace DeMarco.  If it doesn't happen, don't blame Obama.  He has tried.     

 

 

The following is from Van Jones of "ReBuild A Dream"

Floyd -- CONGRATS: Thanks to your hard work and tenacity, President Obama is going to nominate Rep. Mel Watt to replace Ed Demarco! DeMarco, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has refused to help underwater homeowners. For over a year, this community has been on the battle lines together fighting to get rid of him.  The president's announcement is a huge step toward that goal. You have good reason to be proud today: More than 120,242 Rebuilders asked President Obama to fire DeMarco. Tens of thousands signed our White House "We the People" petition. Thousands more wrote letters to their local papers or made phone calls. We united green groups and the labor movement to jointly call for DeMarco's firing. For my part, I kicked the administration over this on TV and in big speeches nearly every chance I could. ;) BUT this fight is not over: Watt will need to be confirmed by the Senate.  Please give your senators' offices a call today at (202) 224-3121 and tell them we need Mel Watt as FHFA chief. Mel Watt is a long-time congressman from North Carolina.  He has fought AGAINST predatory lending and FOR struggling homeowners.  This is the type of person we need in charge of the FHFA, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. DeMarco has been single-handedly blocking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from resetting some home loans to their fair market value.  Families are struggling and the economy is sputtering -- but DeMarco is a rigid ideologue who refuses to act. Wall Street inflated a big housing bubble and then blew it up, leaving homeowners to pick up the tab.  Because of this, many now owe far more than their homes are worth.  Every dollar they have free goes into the loan.  Too often, that is not enough. "Underwater" homeowners are the most common victims of foreclosures that drag down property values for everyone. Economists say resetting a select number of home loans to today's fair market value would reduce foreclosures and jumpstart the economy. I say that since we already bailed out the Wall Street bankers who caused this mess, it is simply the right thing to do. 120,242 Rebuilders say that President Obama needed to get rid of DeMarco -- and today is proof that our voices can make a difference. Thank you!!! Van

 

 

~~~

 

Mel Watt Enjoys Close Ties to Financial Industries.

 

Alison Fitzgerald

The Center for Public Integrity / News Report

Published: Sunday 5 May 2013

 

 

Bank leaders, PACs made prospective housing agency leader a top recipient of campaign cash.

 

 

 

 

Rep. Mel Watt has plenty of friends in the financial services industry: The North Carolina Democrat whom President Barack Obama has appointed to oversee mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has received more campaign money from financial interests than any other industry or special interest.

Since he entered Congress in 1992, Watt has received $1.33 million in campaign contributions from the finance, real estate and insurance industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics. 

That’s almost a quarter of the total $5.47 million in total contributions he’s received through his career.

Watt’s biggest donors were commercial banks, with the finance and securities industries following at number five, according to CRP. During the last election cycle, the political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo each gave Watt’s campaign $10,000. Bank of America and Goldman each gave an additional $5,000 to Watt’s leadership PAC.

Watt sits on the House Financial Services Committee and he represents the Charlotte, N.C., area, which is home to Bank of America and was home to Wachovia, until it failed and was purchased by Wells Fargo.

If he’s confirmed to replace Ed DeMarco at the top of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Watt will be tasked with determining the future of the two mortgage giants that were taken into federal receivership in 2008 after catastrophic losses brought them to near collapse.

A freewheeling mortgage market that allowed people to borrow huge amounts with little documentation, combined with a massive derivatives industry tied to the performance of those mortgages led to an almost complete meltdown of the U.S. financial system in 2008 when home prices declined and homeowners began defaulting on their loans.

DeMarco, who has been interim chairman of FHFA since 2009, has been criticized by the Obama administration, members of Congress, and consumer groups for opposing mortgage principal write-downs to help homeowners at risk of default to stay in their houses. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy and securitize about 90 percent of all new mortgages in the U.S. and guarantee those loans, making them a crucial part of the of the housing market and integral to banks’ business and profitability.  Fannie alone has provided about $3.3 trillion in mortgage credit to the market since January 2009, according to its web site. 

Since they went bust, the two enterprises have borrowed $187.5 billion from the U.S. Treasury              

Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s PACs contributed $11,500 to Watt’s campaign from 2004 until their 2008 bailouts.  Employees of the two companies gave at least $4,250 from 1998 through 2004, with Fannie’s controversial former CEO Franklin Raines chipping in $1,500 to help Watt keep his seat.

Bank of America, Watt’s hometown bank that got a government bailout after buying money-losing mortgage giant Countrywide and troubled investment bank Merrill Lynch, contributed $66,500 to Watt through its PAC from 1998 to last year.

Former CEO Kenneth Lewis, who spearheaded the money-losing acquisitions, contributed $3,000 to Watt during the 2008 crisis year.

~~~

 

Sequester Actually Increases Spending.

So Repeal It

 

Dave Johnson

Campaign for America’s Future / Op-Ed

Published: Monday 6 May 2013

 

 

We need the government increasing spending to get us out of this economic quagmire and return to full employment.

 

Cutting Meals On Wheels doesn’t save the government a dime, it costs $489 million a year.  Cutting IRS obviously increases the deficit because it lowers tax revenue.  Other cuts also increase spending. All obviously hurt the economy.  Tell me again, what’s the justification for this?  Repeal this foolish and unjustified sequester.

The sequester is a series of across-the-board budget cuts (except not for the FAA when it affects business flyers).  This year $85 billion is cut from government spending. This not only takes $85 billion out of the economy, it takes it out from programs where the spending was set up to maximize the benefit to We the People.  (That is the point of government spending.)

A few examples:

Meals on Wheels: The Center for Effective Government (CFFEG) reports that this year’s $10 million sequester “savings” on the Meals on Wheels program “will be dwarfed by at least $489 million per year in increased spending on Medicaid, both this year and in each subsequent year that sequestration remains in place.”

 

By helping elderly people stay at home, the program keeps them from needing to move to nursing homes rather than home care. “The average cost to Medicaid of nursing home care per patient is approximately $57,878 annually.”  “Nationally, according to a survey by the Administration on Aging, as many as “92% [of enrollees say Meals on Wheels means they can continue to live in their own home.” Click through for more, calculations, etc.

 

IRS Cuts: Think Progress reports, in Automatic Cuts To The IRS Will Increase The Deficit, that IRS cuts could cost tremendously more than the sequester cuts “save.”  For example, every $1 cut from enforcement, modernization, and management system costs $200.

In April, the agency announced it would furlough more than 89,000 employees to cope with sequestration cuts.  Operating at normal capacity, the agency collected $2.5 trillion in government revenues last year, $50 billion from enforcement activities.  But reducing operations will bring in less money.  Every dollar invested in its enforcement, modernization, and management system reduces the deficit by $200, and every dollar it spends on audits, liens, and seizing property from tax evasion nets $10. One estimate calculated that furloughing just 1,800 enforcement positions could mean losing $4.5 billion in revenue.

Cuts the economy: According to USA Today, in Hidden costs of sequestration: Save now, spend later, slowed economic growth this year alone means that $85 billion of cuts costs the government $31 billion, so it really only cuts $44 billion.  And the increased spending due to lost jobs, increased health care spending, etc. add to that,

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, the abrupt spending cuts this year could slow economic growth by 1.5 percentage points, which would reduce tax revenue. “Besides having adverse effects on jobs and incomes, a slower recovery would lead to less actual deficit reduction in the short run for any given set of fiscal actions,” he said.

See also NY Times, U.S. Spending Cuts Seen as Key in Slowing Growth.

Costs Jobs: The sequester is expected to cost up to 750,000 jobs.  The resulting loss of income tax revenue and increases in unemployment compensation and safety-net programs is only the beginning of the cost of these foolish cuts.  This loss ripples out into the larger economy with things like the loss of sales at local grocery and shoe stores and restaurants.

Scientific research: The future cost of cutting back on scientific research is not measurable, and will not be low.  What if the Internet had not been invented, or had been invented by a private company and therefore held hostage for the profit of a few?

Medical research: What is the future cost in Medicare and Medicare spending from cutting back now on medical research? What is the cost of losing the researchers who can’t get funding?

 

Even defense cuts: Because cuts in the military budget are “across-the-board” and unplanned, so contract termination fees and resulting litigation, future cost of maintenance cutbacks and other new costs will actually increase future spending in this area much more than current cuts “save.”  From the previously-referenced USA Today story,

…if you don’t replace the O-rings in a system and continue to use it, you’re going scruff up the cylinders.  And now, instead of replacing O-rings, you’re overhauling an engine,” said Ron Ault, president of the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, which represents shipbuilding unions.  “It’s going to cost millions extra.  There’s not one penny of savings in this. It’s going to drive costs through the roof.” In some cases, canceling contracts could result in termination costs for the government, said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, a trade group of government contractors. Sorting out who pays for those costs could result in expensive litigation, he said.

No Justification For Sequester or Other Cuts

The justification for the sequester was that “government spending is out of control,” that the deficit is too high and that economic growth is hurt by government debt.  But these are only a few examples of how these foolish cuts actually increase government spending. The deficit is already down by 50 percent (as a share of the economy) from the levels Bush left behind.  And the academic study that claimed that government debt hurts growth has been debunked because it not only used data selected to make this point, but because a spreadsheet error led to the wrong conclusions.  So the justifications collapse on simple examination.

Repeal the sequester now.  We need the government increasing spending to get us out of this economic quagmire and return to full employment.

~~~

A GOOD ONE

 TO FINISH YOUR DAY WITH.

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

 

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God.      This student received the only "A

~~~

If, the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise I'll talk with you again next Tuesday May 14, 2013.

 

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd