Steve's Barking what Greek Bailout?

Just read that the Greek Parliament agreed to lay off government workers for a bailout.
A bailout of what, and for whom?
Giving money to destroy lives sound more like a colonization then a bailout.   

Steve's Barking at what I learned on how to protect Social Security from the last five years

Social Security as we know it is in deep trouble!
I know that the trust funds is solid till the year 2033. That is unless the know nothing's get a bigger voice at the table. The know nothing's being those Chicken Little's  who keep screaming the Social Security trust fund has no money in it and that it's bankrupt. I'm not going to get into the argument that this is totally wrong and if the government can't the special Social Security bonds off then it shouldn't pay any bonds off. If those know nothing's keep talking that there is no money to pay off too the bonds enough times and there given credence then as sure as President Obama is president then people will start to think that they will not get there Social Security checks.
The American public should make the choice as to have Social Security pay only 75 percent of what's
was promised to as a payout at retirement when they started working or end the cap of wages that are taxed for Social Security.
How can the American people make that choice? Through e-mails, letter writing to their congress persons telling them that they want either the vanilla choice reduction of payouts to 75 percent or the chocolate choice of ending the cap on tax of worked income and there by getting a hundred percent of the promise.
The American People should have many choices too fix Social Security as long as it's chocolate or vanilla.

Why should we shouldn't put off this decision, thing sequester.
Why only two ideas. Too many ideas nothing gets done and if is done it generally the stupidest one.
Think Obama Care or as I like to call it camel care.(A camel is a house drawn up by committee).
Giving too many ideas only helps those who want to confuse the issue.

Steve's barking that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the innocent

There is an old expression that  when things are going badly it's raining.
Well things are going badly in Spain. Over one quarter of the population isn't work or as the economic term they are unemployed.
Now what is the Spanish government to do? The people of Spain didn't cause their unemployment.
A down turn in the economy did. Now the Europeon doctors want to use leaches to cure the disease of  unemployment. It is believed by the economic doctors in their ivory towers that by bleeding their patients and making them weaker the disease of unemployment will be cured.
Will the government of Spain continue to take quacks doctors advice or will they try to find their own
way.
Will the government of Spain abandoned the Euro? Will Spain become the next Argintina? Will the Northern Europe try to save their investments. Will Spain turn into a fourth  world country(what ever that means )?
Stay tuned to as the Spanish drown with misfortune.

Steve's barking at gold at 2000

Gold at 2000!
How did I get this number?
It's an air number.
I pulled it out of the air, and it sounded good.
When will it reach 2000?
Let me pull the date out of the air.
January 21st 2014, if it's not on the weekend.
Why so high on gold?
It's a commodity, that's best used for ornaments not like oil or wheat, so if it goes up there is no effect on the human race unless you intend to get married.
Why the rise in price of gold?
It's not because of the collapse of any money system, it's just like the stock market, people fell better if it goes up, and as it goes up it feeds on its self.
So if the price of gold reaches 2000 by the beginning of next year, remember you heard it here first. You can send money and I'll give you more tips or better yet one of those financial networks should hire me.
If gold doesn't hit 2000 don't forget I just made it up.

Steve's barking let's be pro active in looking at welfare providers

Fraud, it's fraud I'm telling you.
When I was an auditor with New Your State and Me and my fellow auditors would look at ADC programs, and things like food stamps and Medicaid we did a great service when we were proactive, we didn't catch many crooks but we didn't fool ourselves and the government leadership didn't fool itself we knew that these programs were rife with people who were gaming the system.  The presents of auditors made the providers at least appear to be honest and when they met with the auditors they would have their lawyers present. The state would at least would get back some of the monies that were stolen and ever so often people would go to jail.
The present governor and his immediate predecessor have the idea that providers of  these programs are partners. When the auditors meet with the auditors now (I understand from some of my fellow auditors) that they meet with clerks.
When I retired from working for New York State's Children and Family Services, we would only go out and audit a provider if there were several complaints against it.

One of my co-worker who became a assistant director with medicaid was asked what he would do to save money, he had several ideas, including having several patients that were going to the same office from the same area at the same time, take one medicaid  designated  car and pay for only one trip. This would have saved millions. His higher ups thought this was a great idea. When the Heath Department officials were asked for ways to save money, they came up with some lame ways.

If Willie Sutton was alive today he would be a medicaid provider, that's where the money is.

Steve's barking at the"R" word that scares him

The "R" word that scares me is reformer. (You were thinking I would write Republican. Not from someone who starts writing in the third person)
Reformers some times start out with their hearts in the right place like dare I say it, George Wallace.
After a loss or two they turn to the comfort zone of conservative politics.
Then you have reformers of type whom think that passing comfort legislation (like passing unenforceable tough gun controll legislation, or same sex marriage legislation) but weaken government making their reforms a joke.
I fear tax code reform, the reformers seem to hate everything that doesn't help their constituents directly, and want to keep in place what will keep them at their present job.
Now have my own idea for tax reform( perhaps I'm just as hypocritical as the next guy ) of taxing income as income and having dedicated taxes, that if  borrowed from that debt is treated as any other debt.
When I think of New York reformers,I think of the late great mayor Ed Koch, who legislated every reform that he could think of till he became mayor, who upon becoming mayor said holy sh-t how is the city going to pay for this legislation.

Steve's barking when freedom gets in the way of freedom?

When one is afraid to go out for fear of being mugged one doesn't have freedom.
When one has the right to own a weopon and one must have a weopon to out of fear of others having weapons one has lost his or her freedom.
When cooperations use their power to buy other corporation or are joint together to set price we have lost our freedom..
When one is limited to where they can get health care by limited resources one has only limited freedom.
When one is next to a sick person because that person is forced to work one can even say both persons have limited freedom.
When one can't leave a drug infected neighborhood because of limited resources that person doesn't have  the freedom of movement.
How much freedom does one have when one is afraid of being verbally bullied, yet the bully has the freedom to say what ever on her or his mind.

(Question, are television pundits bullies? )

Isn't it true that those who have the greater resources have the greater amount of freedom, yet our laws indicate that we all have the same freedom.

Steve barking the day after tax day in America

I noticed how hard it is to increase taxes and how easy it is to lower them.
I realize that it would be an uphill battle to have dedicated taxes for health care and increase taxes for Social Security, but those are battles well worth taking.

Steve Barking I wounder what would Sargent Ho say about gun control?

When I was in basic training in 1966 I had a sargent named Ho who taught us new recruit about killing.
This is what he stated about rifles and guns; This is a rifle (picked up rifle). This is a gun( grabbed crotch),
this is for killing( shows rifle), this is for fun(grabbed crotch).

Steve's barking that some times 1+1 doesn't = 2

Lets say that there is two pies on a shelf , each pie can be cut up into eight pieces. One of those pies has only seven pieces, we still say that there are two pies on the shelf even though one of those pies is
seven eight of  a pie. We generally don't say we have one pie plus seven eight of a pie, we say we have two pies even though we couldn't feed sixteen people with the two pies.
Now I say this as a reasoning for those people who claim that Social Security trust fund is insolvent, look at what OMB put out. I happen to be surfing the web when I saw some senator question some one from Social Security administration claiming that accourding to OMB there is a zero some ( or something like that) what is owed the trust funds bonds and what can be collected.
I've written it in past post and I'll write it again if the Social Security trust fund is bankrupt then there is no money to pay those of us who bought saving bonds, or for that matter those who bought thirty year bonds. We're can we get the money? Raise taxes, sell off assets, print it.

To all those Wall Street Journal reporters, no nothing congress people who believe that we can't pay our debts I only have one thing to say yes we can.

Steve's barking, the US lost out because of the end of the Cold War

We in the US have this mistaken belief that the end of the Cold War was an important economic and social win for the United States. I Ofcause beg to differ. With the collaps of the Soviet Union we lost one of our greatest competitors. When one has no comtition one tends to get fat and lazy with innovation few and poor just like Microsoft when it destroyed it competitions programs.
With the Cold War America was more socially just, we just had to prove that our way is better then our competion, now our politicians just don't give a --- .
During the Cold War you would hear of the great deficit, but reasonable people just ignored it. Now reasonable people make like it's the most frightening thing since the atomic bomb. Every time they hear the words public deficit they want to duck under their desks' and cover thier heads never mind the other terrible bombs out there, pension and social security. Oh I almost forgot the aging of America and the Medicare bomb.

Now I ask you my friends and enemies if the Soviets hadn't left Afganistan would we have been attacked by Islamist extremists on Sept 11th 2001? I don't think so.
It maybe true that America may have won the Cold War but lost the peace.

Steve's barking at simple economic explanations for simpletons

Lets start with the premise that the low interest rates on a car loan isn't making the price cars go up.
Now taking this a step further low interest by the Federal Reserve does not cause the price of anything to go up.
Lets ask a simple question, in a house hold that pays more in goods and services then takes in from salary but has other income that helps cover the cost is that household running a deficit? The US is paying out more then it takes in from taxes, but it gets money from an outside source known as the FED how much of a deficit are we running?
Can one call Calvin Coolidge one of the top presidents because of the economic expansion that happened during his administration or do we blame him for the economic contraction?
Can we call Bill Clinton a great president for the economic expansion that happened under his watch, or do we blame him for the collapse of the housing market (seven years later) as some do.

Some easy rules:
Inflation is be based on supply and demand.
The sole reason for businesses are to make money.
Believe it or not government creates more jobs then it destroys.
Believe it or not,the US government is not the biggest hindrance to capitalism other capitalist are.
Money shouldn't be finite, the population is expanding, so should the money supply.
Those fiscal conservatives  who worry about government deficits shouldn't put money into banks.


 

Steve's barking at fantasy inflation

I've read in more then one place that the FEDs printing electronic money will lead to runaway inflation.
Now I've written it before so I might as well write it again noooo printing of money in itself  does not lead to inflation despite what the majority thinks. Some I the the majority I have only the highest regards for in what they think and what they say, but in the case of inflation money if it's printed or not doesn't lead to inflation. The truth be told most inflation is caused by supply ands demand.
If a person got excess money they can do several things with it, like save,spend or invest.
Now things like drought, producing products that lose money there by making it unprofitable to run a business would cause inflation.  Even products that were there that became unpritable  causes inflation. If one doesn't believe me, just look at some rental housing that had to be abandoned and there was still a need, didn't the price of renting go up?
The electric inferstructure in the North East was devastated isn't the price of electricity going up? Isn't the rise in the price of electricity going to put pressure to raise the price of manufactured goods, and meals in resteraunts?
 Sorry Charley, inflation is primarily caused by lack of goods and services not by the fantasy of printing money.

Steve's barking sticks and stones

What's wrong with my the society that I live in, when calling someone a homosexual (?) gets equal com damnation with physically and verbally assaulting players on a college basketball team.
If I was the father of a player and I found out that coach Rice had thrown a basketball at my sons head or that he pushed or kicked him, if I didn't personally go down to the campus and beat the sh-t out of him, I would have sued him and the school. If the coach had done that in the street he'd be in jail.
Calling some one a name to motivate him is no were as reprehsible as possibly causing some physical
injury.

Steve's barking at work, what is hard work

Problem, what is hard work?
Is it the comedian who does stand up..
It seems easy to those who don't do it. How many people like to judged on their work in the present.
I remember in my youth I wanted to be a profession athlete, now out side of not making that good money I'm glad I don't have millions of bosses (fans) looking at the job I'm doing and criticizing every thing I do.
At one time I had this crazy idea that those big hulks who were doing road work were not doing there job, now I realized what an idiot I was, those guys work really hard and it's a shame that fools like me take them for granted.
Farmers are hard workers and despite what one may think they are just as harder worker as those farmers who didn't have the labor saving devises that they have now. No their bodies don't have to work as hard but their brains works harder.
Is being an auditor or an accountant a hard worker or is it just good enough just to have great skills.
Now I know that most of those news and money commentators have a problem doing anything but snooze work ( sleep walking through there jobs).

Steve's barking at be happy no worry you got work to do

There is a prevailing view that those who have a job should be happy, even though it hardly pays the rent. Never mind that transportation cost keep going up to get to the job (every one should walk to their job, it's healthier). The cost of vice is going up due to government intervention.
This is true almost universal. Be happy, low wages are the coming rage, after all were in a global economy with global competion, don't worry, be happy, for if you don't like we can always import workers.