Steve's barking at too few goods

 Every school boy from my generation knows that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. This is an equation, for those who are too lazy to look at the whole equation it means that there is a lack of goods for the amount of money in circulation.
I understand that for some out there this is a hard equation to follow. I'm going to make it even harder for you to follow. If for instants a farmer can't make money from selling his produce, he will plant less by buying less seed or even perhaps he would go out of business altogether. Now my way of thinking, this will cause inflation in the price of food. This can happen in other markets as well.
Lets take my home town NYC. Now lets assume there is a high paying job explosion. People who aren't from New York will come and be willing to pay higher prices for apartments, forcing those who can't afford those rents to go to less desirable places and this go on forcing those displaced to look for less desirable places. Now not everyone will agree with me but until new housing stock is built you have rent inflation. Now rent inflation might not be such a bad idea because more housing stock could very easily be build. There is no unfortunate problem with this scenario, because of the rent inflation, those who need the new rentals probably can't afford them, it might even cause the builders to go into bankruptcy.
Now lets go to the first part of the equation, too much money. Can there ever be too much money? There are things you can do with the excess money, such as invest it or even save it. There is nothing you can do if there are too few goods or services.

Now to get around to my way of thinking if money is printed when goods and services are plentiful,don't mean a thing ( like if you don't have that swing). But if goods and services are few you might have too print the money just to keep up with inflation.           

Steve's barking at theater cheating

The holiday movie receipts are in. Less money was made this year then last year.
Holy mother of the mole. What's wrong? The audience doesn't want to pay those high prices? 
Maybe movies should be less and paying for three d glasses, what's that all about? Maybe movies should be a dollar less and the money would be made up by larger crowds.

Then of cause there maybe there's a little cheating going on. Maybe the cineplex let audience go from one film to another without stopping them. But that was going on since the invention of the cineplex.
Maybe it's the price is too damn high.( kind of like the rent).Try something different lower the price and make it up with a larger audience.

Steve's barking at self hating government workers

I remember as it was yesterday the first time I was siting at my desk and I heard one of my co-workers complain how much taxes he was paying and that most of you government don't do anything.
Now as I tend to recall this guy was the standard barer for what was wrong with the agency that I worked at. Never on time, always leaving early, never doing what he was suppose to do.Isn't that always the case, those who complain the most are the worst offenders. I even heard from some fellow who lived in upstate Hudson Valley Complaining about the prisons and how they should be in the city.
Listen to the city pols and that what they had wanted, but of course prisons create jobs and, jobs create more jobs and the upstate pols liked that.
Now I've seen in the newspaper some professor complain about the taxes he was paying and of cause the government pension. Now for any state college professor to complain about workers in city government means that he's complaining about himself (Of cause these not to bright people don't understand that ). Now if someone complains about what they were getting in the way of pensions they don't have to except it.
Now several state workers that I had met along the way would joke that government worker were middle class welfare recipients. Well maybe they were speaking for themselves?
Now any college worker complains about government, is really complaining about themselves, because all colleges are subsidized by the government. Even the the rich schools are subsidized by the government by having students receiving financial aid.
 

Steve's barking at wise man foolish man

The wise man knows how to listen, the foolish man doesn't know when to be quite.
The foolish man may for all practical purposes may not be stupid, and the wise man may not know it all, but he knows that he doesn't know it all.

The former speaker of the house I'm told is a PhD grad from Tulane University. How?
After hearing him I wounder if he would answer correctly the history question on who's smarter then a fifth grader.

I don't think that us college students of the late 6os early 70s who took an economic course were brainwashed by Samuelson.

Steve's barking at wrong for right

What happens when you do the wrong thing for the right reason?
That what the President of the United States proposed and the senate concurred.
It's right to want to put more money into workers hands during a employment recession.
It's wrong (dead wrong) to take money away from Social Security by reducing the tax that workers pay into the fund, especially when the disability part of the fund may be running out of money with in the next couple of years.( they will probably borrow from the the retirement part of the fund).
Does not paying the full amount that should be tax and is not hurt the trust fund?
You betcha.
Now on the opposite part of the coin the house of representatives voted against extending the tax break because it wasn't for a year. right thing wrong reason.

* Through out our history we have done the right thing for the wrong reason and wrong things for the right reason.
** My understanding is that the Social Security trust fund have bonds that will pay it till the 2030's.
What not stated is where the money is to come from to pay for the bonds.
Will it come from defense? Will it come from medicaid, food stamps, from the local senior citizen center or  kindergarten? Maybe a special tax to pay off all our debts?
*** We should be making all workers pay the same percentage with no limit, helping pay off future debt until money is needed to pay for social security. Would that hurt the economy? Possible but it's not any worse then any other plan to reduce the dept.

Steve's barking at addiction

Unfortunately for me I have an addiction personality.
I sit down at the kitchen  table and for no other reason then there's food around I will eat even though I may not be hungry. I pay my bills in the kitchen. I watch the Jets and the Giants in the kitchen. I read in the kitchen. I even run to the kitchen when when I'm frustrated with the news and the talk shows on television. So that may be why I'm not at a good weight.
I'm addicted to watching men and women doing things with and to each other on the Internet. I don't know why but I am.
I listen to the news or watch it on the telly even the business news constantly, though it barley changes hourly.
I even smoked on a whim, and it took me forever to kick that addiction.
I've got a new addiction with two blogs, Naked Capitalism and Paul Krugman's blog.Why I'm so hooked on these blogs, I know not why, but I am.

Steve's barking at Monday Morning Quarterbacking

President Obama should have gotten tough with the Republican Party on day one.
The US government shouldn't have forced Freddy and Fanny to lend unworthy borrowers for home loans.
The government shouldn't have bailed out the banks.
The Republican Party should have begged Donald Trump to run for president and have all the other candidates just abandon the race.
We should ignore the constitution when it gets in the way of our beliefs and strictly enforce it when it doesn't.
We should have listen to business leaders more then our political leaders.
We should be able to have a no confidence vote in the presidency kind of like the European parliaments.

Monday morning quarterbacking is taken from the time when professional football (American) was only on Sunday.
The Quarterback called most of the play, and they didn't so much come in from the sideline.
On Monday morning when the game was discussed criticism of the play calling was known as Monday morning quarterbacking. We generally had no idea what we were talking about.

Steve's barking at entitlements

Entitlements every body talks about them but no one improves them.
What was that sentence about?
Well let me try to explain in the simplest way I can.
Medicare and Social Security are paid for by direct taxes.
Keep it simple again it is the only tax we workers pay that we are suppose to know what it's for.
That's right we pay FICA and we are suppose to be believe that it pays for Social Security and Medicare not for the army, not to build roads or even pay for Medicaid or unemployment insurance.
Now I can understand lending this money out to help pay for these necessities and to make interest from lending the excess money out.
Unfortunately our politicians (left, right and in between), commentators and too many people who call themselves economist believe that this money is just like any other tax. As I've stated before we have an idiot** problem in this country.
As an ex-auditor I know that commingling of money is a no-no.

Those of us who want to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent, understand that you can't pay for other services including debt service by raiding trust funds.
(1) When you lessen the payout for Medicare and or Social Security to help with the over all budget your raiding the trust fund, that was payed by a direct payroll tax.
The wise man understands that to keep Social Security solvent way into the future, we will have to extend the Social Security payroll tax to cover all pay with no cut off.
(2) Currently we have 106,00 dollar cut off. Now if this isn't a tax injustice I don't know what is.
Maybe, just maybe we should raise the part of the FICA tax that pays for medicare by 1/2 percent.
Instead of cutting the money for things we pay for Medicare maybe we'll be able to have more hospitals, doctors may be able to pay for more staff. Maybe as strange as it may seem we may have more people working by raising taxes.

* I don't know how social security and government health care is payed for in other counties, but my gut feeling is that it's not payed for by direct tax. Maybe the politicians and other buffoons would be a little less likely to go after it.

** It seems that idiots in the United States are proliferating like bunnies.

Steve's barkin at test scores NYC children

Here we go again.
New York City children test scores on math and reading are in the 24% range and every bodies got their nickers up in the air.
This is great news if you like to play the blame game.
The way I see it,the educators in NYC got short changed because they didn't know how to cheat on this test.
I'm actually not very upset by the children can't read, most of the adults I see on the boob tube,be it political or just some talking head commentator have a problem with reading comprehension. For that mater it's the same with newspaper opinion writers.
If one listens to the majority of politician and talking heads and opinion writers you can even say the same thing about math (math including logic).
To summarize my thinking, we should make sure the adults can read and understand math before we criticize that Johnny can't read or do math in the fourth grade.

*I don't know how many people who are out of work are poled by the dept of labor but if he same amount of people are asked if they are still looking for work is the same as 4 years ago or even 6 months ago the statistics are very shaky to say the least.
** So many of us quote the constition but it doesn't say way we want it to say.

Steve's barking at what if

What if the United States had behaved like Europe is be having now after World War II.
Would there be no Marshall Plan?
Would Europe turn into a third world continent? 
What would have happened if the United States banks didn't  lend money to Germany in the twenties?
Would there have been a never ending inflation?
Would there have been wholesale death?
Would World War II stared earlier?
If there was no Marshall Plan would the United States have gone into a great recession?
What if the United States demand it's money that it lent in World War I soon after the war?
Would Europe have collapsed?
What if the rating agencies had down graded German bonds when East and West combined?
Would Germany still be this strong economic power?

Is Northern Europe cutting off it's nose despite it's face by demanding austerity in Southern Europe and Ireland?

Steve's Barking at Newt erd again

Oh no Mr Gringrich you didn't.
Food stamps are being used to finance trips to Hawaii?
You know this because?
The EBT cards can be used as  a credit card?
Do you know what an EBT card is?
I can see it now, Fly the friendly sky of jet Hawaii using you food stamps so we can feed the rest of the passengers.

steve's barking at lets do the wrong thing

Lets do the wrong thing for the banking system and have the banks borrow at 2% at the discount window.
That would seem like the wrong thing when we need liquidity in the a down turn in the economy,but were not lending what should be lent out anyway, maybe this would force the banks to do what they are in business to do.

Steve's barking at pensions again

Pensions are ruining the world. That's the general rule that's going around.
Look at England, Look at the States. Hell look at all of Europe, lets get the pensioners. It doesn't matter if it's private pensions or government pensions, it's all the same. Nobody says anything about how in the United States companies systematically took money out the pension systems if they were companies that took over other companies to help pay for their take over. I wounder what those take over companies are going to do to help pay for their takeovers. Charge the workers for the air they breath in the companies shop. Then we have the companies that don't put into pensions because it would be more costly and their profits wouldn't be as great, reducing the stock price (maybe).
Now we come to government pensions in the United States that have been paying out pensions for ever. Never until recently have there been any doubt that they would be payed.
The excuse now is people lie longer. True but if a person is only living on the interest not the principle what different does it make how long a person lives, the only problem with that hypothesis is inflation.That would hurt turning a moderately poor person to a really poor person. Or if the pensioner had a nice pension into a lousy pension.
Now I'm not the brightest guy in the world but it would seem to me that when you put a side a percentage for a worker salary then the same percentage should be set aside for the pension.

* It appears to me that pension reform that good government groups  want to use for other purposes should be put into the pension funds.
I guess they feel if good enough for the private sector it's good enough for the public sector.
Maybe if you look at those good government groups their really bad government groups.
I don't have the knowledge of European pensions but it seems to me that when you are promised something when you start work, it's the obligation come hell or high water to keep your word.