Steve's barking; Olympics good for Brazil?

A large portion of the Brazilian population is against the Olympics being staged in Brazil. The argument being that the resources that the Brazilian government is using for the hosting the Olympics and the World Cup should be used to fight poverty. In fact there have been fierce* demonstrations against the holding of the Olympics and the World Cup in Brazil. (This in a country that adores (football) soccer to the point that it's a national obsession).
Now many an economist will say that hosting these sporting events are not justified, even taking in a nations pride that goes with them. Even the ones that make money they will tell you aren't worth the effort, for only the few get benefits from them.

In Rio de janeiro they are clearing the slums, and it is not pretty. To host the Olympic games a clean up of the water ways has to take place. Housing for the Athletes have to be built that will be used after the Olympics. Transportation has to be improved for the games.
Now one has to ask one self, are the clearing of the slums, cleaning the water ways, building new housing, improving transportation important for Rio? If yes and like me  you think that there isn't a will to do these things unless there is something like an Olympics. Then Rio having the Olympics is a good thing.

*Riots

Steve's barking infrastructure is just too, too, too

The infrastuctucture of the US is in terrible shape. Why don't we do something about it?
Were just too, too, too.
We're too lazy.
We're too cheap.
We're too dumb.

Steve's barking economic bend don't break

Cable is demanding more money from it's customers. Channel providers are demanding more money from the cable companies
The rent is going up.
If you buy a house, mortgages are going up.
Food prices are on the rise.
Communication providers prices are on the rise.
Transportation cost keep going up.
What about insurance, that too is going up.
Even the water bill is going through the roof.
Debt, (especially student is in the stratosphere)
Salaries for the average Joe are stagnated or even lower.

• The economy can not bend much more, it's on the verge of breaking.

Steve's barking at rubber band economics

Just prior to my middle age spread, a long time ago there used to be a thing said in whispers called rubber band economics. Now those who have no idea what rubber band economics was, let me try to explain.
During the 50s and early 60s the economy would expand and then if being held by a rubber band it would contract ( We'd call it a recession). Then it would expand again, but we had gotten a bigger rubber band and the economy would expand a little bit more and not contract as much. This gave rise to the idea maybe it would be a good idea that we should get a humongous rubber band, this gave way to the economy going all over the place. Those supposedly quite bright thought it would be a good idea to eliminate the rubber band all together.

Just think, in the 40's, 50's and early 60's we had steady and slow growth with minor contractions.
One might say this was the height of Keynesian  economics, though as I recall, it's not totally what Keynes had written.
This was also the height of regulation.
This was also the time that the economy ran at it's best.

Steve's Barking: at what the founding fathers of America said about slavery

What Our founding fathers said about slavery (George Mason University)

• "The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind."
  -- George Mason

• "It were doubtless to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren!"
  -- James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 42

• "Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, or morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both."
  -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, 1816

• "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil."
  -- Patrick Henry, letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1773

• "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
  -- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

• "[The Convention] thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."
  -- James Madison, Records of the Convention, August 25, 1787

• "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it."
  -- George Washington, letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786

• "We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."
  -- James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787

• "Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence."
  -- John Adams, letter to Robert Evans, June 8, 1819

• "It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused."
  --John Jay, letter to R. Lushington, March 15, 1786

• Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.
  -- James Madison, Letter to R. H. Lee, July 17, 1785 (Madison, 1865, I, page 161)

• [W]e must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property. In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of another, the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property. In being protected, on the other hand, in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others, the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property.
  -- James Madison, Federalist, no. 54

• American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.
  -- James Madison, State of the Union,1810

• It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character as a people, both abroad and at home, that they should be considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings, and not as mere property. As such, they are acted on by our laws, and have an interest in our laws. They may be considered as making a part, though a degraded part, of the families to which they belong.
  -- James Madison, Speech in the Virginia State Convention of 1829-30, on the Question of the Ratio of Representation in the two Branches of the Legislature, December 2, 1829.

• Outlets for the freed blacks are alone wanted for the erasure of the blot from our Republican character.
  -- James Madison, Letter to General La Fayette, February 1, 1830.

• [I]f slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration.
  -- James Madison, Letter to Robert J. Evans

• In contemplating the pecuniary resources needed for the removal of such a number to so great a distance [freed slaves to Africa], my thoughts and hopes have long been turned to the rich fund presented in the western lands of the nation . . ."
  -- James Madison, Letter to R. R. Gurley, December 28, 1831.

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Last Updated | June 27, 2002

James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason were slave holders who never free their slaves

What can we learn from this?

Don't trust what they said about anything? They really were in favor of gun control?

Money controls what we do over conscience?

They Truly were afraid of the people? Kind of like the poser politicians now who must show that they own guns.

What does it say about the American constitution and the second amendment?

* One may ask what some of the founding fathers said about slavery have to do with the second amendment to the Constitution, one only has to ask one self if they behaved the opposite way about slavery you would have to question what they truly meant when writing the second amendment to the Constitution.

** Perhaps Michelle Bachman was right, our founding father's conscience work tirelessly against slavery, unfortunately their conscience lost.

Steve's barking, equal pay for women.

I'm all for equal pay for anybody who does the same job, spent the same amount of  time on the job, same schooling, ext.
I'm not sure were the statistics that a women only get 75 or 83% (depending on who's saying it) make what a man makes come from.
What do they mean by that? I have to assume that they mean for the same, same education, same time on the job?
Question would HP pay a man more then it pays it CEO? The same is true for Yahoo and Xerox? And how do you prove it?
Does Mount Sinai Medical Hospital pay it's interns by gender?
What about Neurosurgeons, or any other specialty, do hospitals pay those specialty doctors what they believe the dollars they can bring in to the hospital or do they have gender bias and how can you prove it?
When companies recruit on collage campuses do the they offer women less then they offer men? What is the proof one way or an other?
 Do women accountants make less then men accounts in Ernst and Young? Has anybody seen their payroll records?
What about Universities? Do women history professors make less then men at the same Universities? Proof one way or the other? While I'm at it, do colleges pay more for notoriety?( Notoriety is probably the wrong word).
 Should Britteney Giner make more then Andrew Bynuim ,after all she more valluable to her team?

I used Britteney Giner because she is better a basketball this year then Andrew Bynnuim, but because of the league that she plays in their is no way she could be payed the same as Andrew Bynuim.

When I was working in a civil service job the women next to me might not be making as much as me for I had seven years at that tittle, after she reached the seven years she made the same as me. Equal pay for equal work, no? Is it fair in that instance ? I'll let the readers of this blog decide.

The poof, if forth from comparing apples with apples might bite those who are making gender bias a big deal in the butt..
I wouldn't compare Granny Smith, McIntosh, once sweet, the other is tart.

Steve's barking Austerity works (NOT) in Greece

 On Thursday the Greek Government is going into the bond market for the first time in several years.
The yield of these bonds is to be six percent. These is an extremely low yield as compared to the yield that the Greek government paid the last time they issued bonds. The report is that there are more buyers of the bonds then they could possibly sell.
 Greece is going through a terrible Austerity program.
Does this mean that Austerity works?
Does it mean the the men and women of Greece are Screwed?
Does this mean that there are a lot of high rollers out there who need to gamble just to get a decent return on investments after all German bonds are reported under 1%. American bonds, forget about it.

Steve's barking; Why don't Americans want choice?

We Americans demand choices in our life, in every thing we do. This is what I keep reading in periodicals.
If that was the case why are so many of us dead set against the Affordable Health Care Act.?
Most of those who have health care from there job say they're happy with what they got. It seems to me that they are afraid of choice. There are fear mongers among us who are trying limit what insurance we can get for our health care.

Steve's barking;I don't speak American English, so what

I don't speak American English, I speak Bronx English with that heavy Bronx accent. It's so heavy that my I phone can't understand me . I asked Siri to spell function and it said that isn't very nice, and then gave me the spelling of a sexual activity followed by it. So I don't speak very good English, just like those guy in Louisiana who have that Creole accent that no one can understand. What does this all mean? Not a damn thing except to say that I have sympathy for those immigrants who come from another country and have a hard time being understood.

What's with all those students who study Spanish (or some other language) for three years in high school and can only understand yes (Si' in Spanish) and perhaps know the correct pronunciation of a food (Tacos for those who took Spanish)? Is that a failure of the American education system? Huh, is it?

Steve's Barking, Bad schooling, a New York thing.

A charter school lobby group payed three and a half million in adds so that charter schools shouldn't have to pay rent. If that group had put that money up for rent they probably would have paid the rent for all the charter schools next year.
Charter schools' in the city on the whole do no better then public schools in comprehensive testing even though there is one charter group of schools that do the best in the State, so you can imagine what most charter schools do.
In Albany several weeks back there was a rally for charter schools, were three thousand people were in attendance, what isn't well known about this rally that several groups that were in attendance like The Civil Service Employees Association came to Albany to lobby their legislators, but when they got off their buses they were handed tee shirts that said save our charter schools. Many of these people were led to to the rally before they went lobbing making the rally larger then it should have been.
I have yet to see a study on what happens to charter school students when they go into the real world of college and work, unless this study is done one has knowledge if charter schools are effective or not.,
Many of the New York City public schools lack laboratories. We Lack the math teachers who can teach the subject. Science teachers we have to import from other countries, and many of our students have a hard time understanding them.