Steve's barking at Greece ing the pole

I keep hearing over and over again from certain politicians that if we don't cut down on spending we'll turn into another Greece. The problem with that is we don't speak Greek. We print our own currency and were not dependent on a central currency of many nations. Yes Virginia the US currency is not even pegged  to gold.
I understand that the Greece's taxes never meet expectation because of extensive tax cheating.
Those politicians and business people who think that the United States might not meet it's bills like Greece should think twice in letting people and industries the ability to hide there money like in off shore accounts.   

Steve's barking at free lunch

Free lunch in America went the way of the nickel beer, unless of cause your a congress person senator or some other elected official.
Some others pay for your campaign, (There are exceptions to this rule). Oh but then you become there slave. And I was under the impression that Lincoln Freed the slaves.
Now I've been told that there's free lunch in our schools, what isn't told that the only way one can get the lunch is being poor, and your parents, parent or guardian has to prove it Now I've also been told that in order to prove your poor one has to jump through hoops like a circus dog.

Now my peeps (people) the old codgers of  America(or at least some) believe that there's a free lunch called Social Security.I( I'm being nasty) At least the Tea Party People in the Bronx believe that you can't raise taxes even FICA to cover the cost of medicare (Instead of taking from the general fund were the people they helped put in office are screaming were going bankrupt and we can't raise taxes) Lets pay the doctors more so they don't leave the program but lets not raise taxes to pay them. Now that can be considered a free lunch.
Now the Social Security Trust fund ( The retirement part, not the disability part) is good till 2033 so the actuaries tell us. Now in order to pay the special bonds for the social security trust fund  money has to be found from some were. Now there are many people who believe that there is a magic money tree, I say just do away with the cap on the social security part of FICA and not worry were the money to pay the bonds will come from.



* My understanding is the disability part of social security is about to run in the red and those who can do something about it have got their head in the sand.
**To pay what is owed the social security trust the money with out new tax revenue the bond money will have to come from other programs, perhaps food stamps, senior citizen centers, medicaid, HUD?

Ever once in a while I like to ramble and this being one of those time.

Steve's barking at Dumb Inflation economics

Inflation is caused by too much money and the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing is like printing money. Now I may not have a PHD or even a masters in economics but I know that's a crop a Sh*t. Of cause all I hear is the end of the world is coming because the Feds printing money and this will cause runaway inflation. Now I didn't hear anything when during the Reagan administration about the Fed burning money which if I'm not mistaken almost destroyed the US economy.
I know that the common belief that runaway inflation in the Germany was caused by the printing of money, when the printing of high amount of Marks was due to inflation. I don't know why the vast majority of intelligent (?) people believe that it's better for the horse to push the cart then pulls it (It's an old expression putting the cart before the horse).
Now I know the school person's definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. That's not my definition of inflation, especially when lazy people only look at the first part of the equation too much money and forget the second part chasing too few goods.
My definition of inflation is the price of goods and services keep rising and rising.
If it takes the average worker 20 hours too pay for his family too eat in a week five years ago, and only 10 hours to feed the family today even though the price of food has gone up 50% one can say that this person is not being robed of his earning power, yet even in my definition it would appear that food inflation has hit 50% yet work has deflated the price of food per hour worked. How is that possible? Raises, decrease taxes, combination of both.

What angers me is those fools who believe that money is the root of all inflation. They don't even take into account that there are different kinds of inflation.
Pay inflation, caused by the shortage of workers, Unions(?), government ( executive pay caused by cronyism). I'm positive there are other reason for pay inflation such as player pay in  baseball.
Droughts and floods causing shortages in food.. While  the inability to make profit causing farmers to give up their farms can also in the long run cause inflation in food prices.Supply and demand cause and effect.
Shortage of material which generally plays itself out in the business cycle.
The hoarding and speculating of goods, such as oil, which in itself can bring runaway inflation.(Energy inflation, gas and oil was one of the roots of the 70's inflation, the other was the Fed burning money ).
Monopolies keep the free market from operating efficiently possibly causing inflation in what they sell.



The central bank or in the case of the United States the Federal Reserve can cause inflation in two ways, by what I call burning money.
Hoarding money, making it scarce. That inflates the cost of money. Too make a profit cost of goods have got to go up. Inflation.
Charging high interest rates, see above.

    

Steve,s barking the duck goes quack, quack, the cow goes moo, moo

When I was younger, much younger then today my mother would come into my very messy and yell at me, do you think you live in a barn? Today I look at the elected leaders of my country and they talk like barn yard animals, so if she was here today I would have to answer her in the affirmative.
The pig is only interested in his slop and the chicken in her feed. None of the animals can communicate with one another, despite the children stories that we read.

Now I'm thinking of the famous non children story Animal Farm, which was an allegory on communism, but for some reason I keep thinking that the Republicans are Napoleon the pig some animals are more equal then others ( some politicians are more equal then others).  How can I get this so confused, aren't the Republicans representative of the capitalistic system? Why would they steal a Soviet idea?


Currently because of the tragedy at Sandy Hook we are talking about gun control, I hope the barnyard animals come up with an enforceable plan. Some of the founding fathers believed that banning the importation of slaves in the early 1800's would end slavery, it took a civil war to do that.


If by chance you happen to stumble upon this particular blog and don't quite know what to make of it, that's OK. It was written to be a little confusing so that the reader would have to use his or her mind.      

Steve's barking It's default of America

I just happened to read an article in The Atlantic Magazine, that happens to suggest that the US has defaulted already on bonds that were issued over 200 years ago by not paying interest on these bonds during the War of 1812.
The reason I'm bringing this up is during the debt the talk was that America has never defaulted on it's bonds (* It seems that in the last 2 years we had more financial crises  then in the past 64 years).
Now I know that we have defaulted on obligations as regards to the special Social Security bonds. The Social Security trust funds bought these bonds as a way to insure the solvency of the fund and to make payouts under the formula that when I as a thirteen year old started putting money into the system, full payment at 65  years of age not 66. Changing the way payments are payed out is a form of default. I know that a majority of my fellow Americans have a hard time grasping this concept. It seems that they believe unless there is a bankruptcy proceeding, or at least nonpayment of money to private investors, or sovereign nation your not in default but we are. It's even been suggested that we double default on these bonds.
Can we payout what we promised when we started issuing these special Social Security bonds. You betcha, just don't have a cap on work tax Social Security part of FICA and if that doesn't cover the shortfall add a slight increase to the percentage of FICA Social Security taken out of the workers paycheck.
Let's not make America harder for our children and grandchildren as they grow older by taking away FDR's promise that the aged would no longer live in poverty.

*Recession, pension time bomb, The student loan bubble, fiscal cliff, debt ceiling,underwater mortgages,
Consumer credit card crises. Feel free to add other financial crises that I just can't think about now.    

Steve's barking legalize and tax marijuana

Let's get stoned.
After all every body must get stoned.
It's been suggested that if we legalized and taxed marijuana our budget deficit would disappear.
If the budget deficit doesn't disappear who cares, we'll be too mellow to give a darn.
As I do recall when I in my more hellion days that marijuana and it's not so famous brother hashish gave me one hell of a sour throat every time I used it.
So let's sell the natural drug in brownies after all how could all those medical users be wrong.
End the nauseousness from chemotherapy now. Just keep the brownies out of the hands of tikes or we'll end up with crashing of trikes.
Unfortunately at pot parties, one can't have a designated driver, least we forget about contact highs.


* I'm sure there must be a picture of me in the early seventies carrying a sign legalize pot now at some rally.   

Steve's barking I want to make the tax code worse.

For the life of me I can't figure out why some one who has shares in a mutual fund has to pay the taxes on capital gains when stocks are sold for a profit or when dividends are paid out that aren't seen by the share holder of the mutual funds. It seems only fair that taxes shouldn't be paid by the share holders untill the money is actually seen by the share holder.
Then again what do I know about the tax code, after all I' m only a tax payer.

Steve's barking at a taxing situation

I hear from the grapevine ( a bunch drunken wine drinkers) that we shouldn't change the tax rates, but do away with some loop holes. Not all loop holes mind you just some unspecific ones. Being unspecific I can  put my twenty cents in ( The expression used to two cents in but due to inflation it's now twenty).
Let's change the income tax system into a strict income tax system. Dividend income is income to be taxed as income. You sell a stock that's income (lets do away with the capitol gains tax loophole and call it what it is, income). Lets do away with the estate tax loophole and tax the proceeds as income ( O boy would I have been in trouble).
It's been suggested that investors don't like to make money unless they can get a tax break so that's why we shouldn't mess with capitol gains tax and perhaps lower it.


It's a shame that McDonald workers can't afford to eat in Burger King, and Burger King workers can't afford to eat at McDonald's. 

Steve's barking The Bimbo could have saved the twinkie

It has accidently come to my attention that Bimbo bakeries, the largest package bakery in the America's perhaps the world wanted to buy Hostess Bakeries when they first declared bankruptcy several years back.
Now if you have never heard of the Mexican Bakery Bimbo, perhaps you know Sara Lee, Entenmann's, Stroehmanns, and Thomas maker of American English Muffins.These are some of the brands that this are owed by Bimbo.
It also appears to my uneducated eyes that, that Hostess will make more money going into bankruptcy then staying whole and continue as a business. A Billion dollars in a years time.
Those sneaky b******* who ran the company. Making accounting procedures seem that the company couldn't survive unless workers concession. Hoping all along that the workers turn down these concessions and even go on strike.
Making money is what the system is all about, and it seems that Hostess did the right business decision but the moral corrupt one.