Steve's barking getting a round peg into a square hole

I'm barking at one of my favorite topics again. Think Tanks!
I've read some stuff from The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and The Manhattan Institute.
Their findings are audit reports. I just happen to know a little about audits and every one that I've reads are incomplete at best at worst the're out and out frauds.They seem to have the conclusion first, then they try to find facts that justify their conclusions, or even worse make up the facts. You don't have to know much about auditing to know that these reports are garbage and many of the facts are suspect.
There are two problems with political economic think tanks, they have to justify there findings by those who pay them and those in the media who take their findings as fact are too lazy to do their own research.
Because of my readings of conservative think tanks I take all think tanks with a ton of salt.    

Steve's barking conservative think tank is an oxymoron

Here we go again, another unable to think tank has stated were all going to go to hell in a hand basket because of the unfunded government pensions. Or is it underfunded government pension. This hold especially true for city and state pensions.
Now ladies and gentlemen  if this being true sell all your stocks in insurance companies especially the ones who have annuities. Well the reason I say that because aren't annuities based on the same bonds and stocks as the pensions are?  Of cause the governments can always raise taxes. Wouldn't that send businesses away. The workers would leave. I guess all the jobs in California have left for no tax states.

Now this same institute in Manhattan claims that New York Housing Authority is three Billion in the in the red for repairs. That selling off airspace is a good idea.
The Housing Authority has a billion dollars in the bank, and repairs are not being made.
New York has one of the nations best public housing if not the best. Why would you mess with the formula.

I remember when the middle class would move if they thought a housing project was going up in their area, now the city wants to place expensive housing in the middle of the projects. People think the acceptance of gay marriage was a big deal.  

Steve's barking as good as isn't good enough.

We ought to hire more (name your gender, race or ethnic group) for top executive positions for they are as good as White Males.
Now with the idea that I may sound prejudice, I wouldn't hire ( name your unrepresented group) if there only as good as, I would hire them if they had a chip on their shoulders that they had something to prove. If they were more hungry then those White Males or they had proven to be better then. Because that what I want to run a company or even a lesser entity called a country. I want better then the rest.

When I look around this globe I see health care that's not good enough, we tend to compare ourselves to other societies instead of looking at what is needed and making an effort to get it done.
All the counties of the world need better health care systems.

We tend to compare our education to other counties and all countries are lacking in some form or other.
I ask myself in the United States are we catering our education to what we believe would make us stand out (this being the most likely scenario)?
Our we trying to have our education meet what is believed the education needs of the future?
What were not doing ( an impossible task) is meeting the individual student's need.

If any country is trying to be as good as the United States, they are making a terrible mistake, that's not good enough, just as the United States keeps saying that were number one, that's not good enough. The countries of this planet have got to strive to be better tomorrow and even better the next day.

Striving to be better then the best is what it's all about.

    
 

Steve's barking Unions raising the white flag

Here in America our unions are are raising the white flag.
Now one reads about Walmart workers wanting to join a union, and Walmart just giving a big yawn.
One even hears that there was a one day strike at Walmart. Sounds like the United Autoworkers holding sit ins at the big three Automakers during the great depression.
Being a good union person from a union shop were one had to pay union dues I realized that in order to be a real good union person like most things in life you need enthusiasm. Why can't unions bring enthusiasm to a younger generation? Now I'm not just talking about young pups just getting into the work force, I'm talking about some middle aged far*s. Is because the unions have lost there way? Has the worker been brain washed, that its not good to have a contract that's the same as the person next to you. Why should a person worry about being brought up on charges, that person would never do anything wrong. Does the modern worker know any of those old Union songs or even know the history of the union movement in this country.
What's wrong with the leadership of our unions, are they more interested in keeping power and closed to new ideas? What new ideas can they come up with that would excite the workers in this country that they would want to belong to a union?

Today most unions in this country are but straw dogs being used by bullies to keep the worker down.

Steve's barking at Brazil's no bread too much circus

Remember from the history books how the Roman Republic kept the populaces happy with full bellies and entertained. Well it seems to me that the of  Brazil is trying to give the people of Brazil somethings that they could all be proud of, holding the world cup and the Olympics so why is there rioting in the streets? Perhaps the government forgot to keep the peoples belly full.
Now it seems that the rest of the wold is happy with Brazil and until yesterday or the day before it was a good place to invest your money after all it's GDP and it's GNP keep going up  and I was told on the tube that income disparity percentage wise was going down (what ever that means).Ah but even the reporter on the financial news network that I was watching stated that the poor (which there are many) in Brazil couldn't afford a small increase in the bus fare. One could say that it was lowing the poor's discretionary income but that would be a lie, the poor in Brazil have no discretionary income. Now it's also come to my attention through this same financial news network that a lot of people in Brazil are upset that the Government is spending all this money on the World Cup and the Olympics and 88 percent of the roads (and there are plenty of them) are unpaved. There are way too many shanties in Brazil why can't the government build new housing?
Now this rioting and calling the government corrupt is news to me, especially when the president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff rating in April was 65 percent called her good to excellent. Over night her government is corrupt and incompetent.


Now I'm in shock again, I'm usually in favor of Sports venue being built, after all new housing is needed for Olympic contestants and when the Olympics are over this housing should be turned over to the poor.
When planning to host World Wide Sporting events the host country normally improves it's infrastructure and creates hundreds if not thousand temporary good paying jobs.  

Steve's barking don't always trust statistics

I remember when I was in grade school the socialist Norman Thomas gave an address to to our assembly.
Now the only thing I remember about his address was the statement he made figures lie and liars figure.
Statistics are numbers (figures) that address on going or previous situations.
What good are statistics anyway? There great for graphs. They should be good for probability. It can even sometimes can make a case for cause and effect.
When we in the United States make the case for life expectancy and our health care system shouldn't we through out death by guns and auto accidents? Doesn't that screwier the system?
When economist make a case against pumping money into the system shouldn't they look at the system more closely and differentiate an agricultural society, from an industrial society and a mixed society.

When we use statistics in baseball is the whole picture being taken in? When they say so an so bat 320 against lefties and only 230 against righties, does that statement  show what kind of hitter the batter is against right handed curve ball pitchers and fastball pitchers and the same for left hand pitchers. Are all the variances taken into account?

During the great depression when Roosevelt took his foot off the throttle the unemployment rate was 20%.
Statistic don't show what would have happened if the wages were paid to WPA workers were more the subsistence giving a greater discretionary income and perhaps self starting the private sector.

A greater worry about statistics is if the number aren't accurate to begin with.
Why shouldn't they be accurate?
Numbers can and are manipulated for self serving purposes.      

Steve's barking poisoned food saves lives

Think about this, we poison our food with chemicals to kill off bugs that eat our food.
If we were to eat too much of the poison food surely we would get sick, that why it's a good idea to wash off your fruits and vegetables (without using soap or as we call it rinsing them off).
We use growth hormones on our chickens and coop them up, surely that's not a good thing for the chickens and us chicken eaters but if we didn't do that would there be enough wings and breast to go around?  What would be the price of chickens and there parts if we only had free range?
What about cows and sheep, lets not forget about pigs and other penned in animals, would we have enough to feed those who desired the eating of flesh for there nutrition if they didn't a little poison in them?

What would happen if we were all vegetarians would there be enough food to go around?

Modern Western men like myself eat too much. We also tend to waste enormous quantities of food. The common wisdom is that this food could be used to feed the starving in various places in the world were there is a shortage of food, the people are hungry and children are dying of malnutrition. My over the belly gut feeling is telling me that we have to be careful fixing this inefficient food distribution system or more people will starve.

Some people eat to live, I'm one of those people who live to eat.    

  

Steve's barking why did the government get telephone records of reporters?

If the government has a telephone monitoring system call Prism why did it have to subpoena the telephone records of reporters?

Steve's barking Snowdon hero or?

Is the leaker that the US NSA has been gathering information  on all the citizens ,telephone calls so that a computoter can monitor them a hero or villian?
I for one am confused, not at Mr. Snowdon but at myself. I'm so ambivalent to the  ignoring of the fourth amendment to the constition by my government.
 It appears that Mr Snowdon is a true believer in the constition, because that the only way to explain his mental. equivalent of a suicide bomber.
Here is a highschool dropout, working as a Secuity guard, then as a CIA analyst eventually working for a private firm earning 200,000 dollars a year in  Hawaii, ending it all to tell the world what it already suspected.  The US is just like any other country.
I know not if  it's. a. Good or bad thing. I s he a hero or villian. Would. I have done the same in my brilliant youth.

Steve's barking don't do your job IRS

In the past several days my elected government has been chastising along with a large portion  of the media the IRS.
Now as I recall from my audit days in New York State one would look for certain red flags to be a little more zealous looking into what should be given a closer look. Now if I'm not mistaken most audits are done this way. Experience should tell what words or expressions should be given a closer look.
So my government and those whom tell us what to think (media types) are telling the IRS not to do their jobs.
What next some billionaires start complaining that the IRS is picking on them and it's class warfare. What's the government going to say, take the billionaires word on what they put on their tax returns?
Congress writes the laws, if they don't want the names of those giving to a political group and want it to be tax exempt they can change the law.
I hope those congress people aren't the same one's who complain that government isn't open enough, for those a** holes would be full of S**t.

I must have gotten so jaded in my old age the NSA is looking at Verizon telephone records and all I can do is yawn though I kinda know this is wrong and I'm pretty sure unconstitutional even with a court order.    
    

Steve's barking, whats good maybe bad

Does something good create something bad?
Plastic containers made things easier to carry.
Plastic containers became a landfill problem.
Replace plastic with cloth and you have a bacteria problem.
Replace the horse which when defecating creates a health problem. With a gas driven carriage and you have an co2 problem.
Cut income of workers to make a grater profit and you have an ability to pay problem eventually cutting customer base. Reducing profits in the long run.

The electric companies need you to use  more electricity for greater profit. The electric companies can't supply the electricity telling the consumer to cut back. The electric companies profits sink.

Fish is a great food for nutritional value. Every body wants to eat fish(?). With the nets and sonar that we have today we catch more fish. This being a good thing except that we're over fishing so we might not have any fish tomorrow.

We need oil and gas so we developed this thing called fracking, we may have plenty of oil and gas and no water to drink.

We have developed pesticides that kill bugs that carry disease and eat our food crops. These pesticides maybe harmful to us.

Ect, ect , ect.

Does every good action have an equal but bad reaction? Is there such a thing Newtonian economic law?

Steve's barking, No one's taking the guns away.

No sane person in the United States believes guns are going to be taken away from citizens who own them.
There are over three hundred million plus reasons why that not going to happen and none of those reasons belong to the constitution. An amendment to the constitution can be taken away by another amendment, just ask the women from the temperance league and the eighteenth amendment.
The 300 million plus reasons are the number of guns in the hands of the citizens. Let's not forget between one quarter and one half of the citizens of the United States have guns.

Two of the school shooting tragedies could have very easily been avoided if the parents of the shooters had practiced gun safety. I put the blame squarely on the NRA for not preaching gun safety enough.

Too many of those worrying about a gun registry assert that there are law and order people, so why don't they want a simple tool that will help catch the bad guys?

For you who think that gun laws will greatly reduce the number of gun deaths in America, I believe that death due to guns would go down slightly less then 1 percent.
Gun violence is one of the things Americans will have to live with.