Donald Trump was harshly castigated for suggesting that he might not accept the result of the election. Now it is Clinton supporters, and Clinton herself, who are demanding recounts and investigations into Russian tampering, and trying to persuade the electoral collegiate to vote contrary to its mandate.
Same old, same old; it's okay when I do it, but not okay when you do it.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Thanksgiving Wishes
New thing to be thankful for this year, we have discovered putting eggnog in our morning coffee. Well, blush, I did and the wife signed on. I normally drink my coffee black, but this is a nice change of pace.
Wishing a peaceful holiday. Hope all are in good health and thriving.
Wishing a peaceful holiday. Hope all are in good health and thriving.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
And The Losers Cry "Foul"
The losing side wants to spoil the party,
Five-year-olds stamping their feet and declaiming, “If you won’t play my way I’m going to pick up my toys and go home.”
The NBA teams in question were boycotting apartheid. Liberals denounced the idea that all Muslims are bad because a few Muslims did bad things, but they embrace the idea that supporters of Trump are a monolithic block, all of whom supported him for his misogyny and because he wants to deport Muslims.
They do not accept that anyone might support him in spite of those rather than because of them, just as they supported Clinton despite her Wall Street speeches and her evasions of the email server issue. For the record, I supported neither candidate; for policy reasons, not because of the childish ad hominem attacks each was throwing at the other.
And, as losers tend to do, Liberals are crying “foul,”
(Etcetera, most of it gibberish.) The losing side always claims the election was fraudulent and/or that the system doesn’t work. The Republicans made such claims in 2008 and 2012, and Democrats are making it now as they did in 2000. The loser walks away from the poker table accusing the winner of cheating. It was always thus.
Liberals, actually, are not tolerant of ideas that differ from their own, and we are learning this year that they are extraordinarily ungracious losers.
“No one goes. No athletes. No championship teams. No performers. No musicians. No celebrities. ALL invitations are rejected. No White House Correspondents Dinners. No Inauguration Balls. No State dinners. No singing Christmas carols with the Trump kids. Nothing. Full boycott. No exceptions. Donald Trump does not get to enjoy the perks of this job. Period."
Five-year-olds stamping their feet and declaiming, “If you won’t play my way I’m going to pick up my toys and go home.”
“For the rest of us: we don’t support anyone or any company that enabled Trump. Like those NBA teams, we boycott all Trump businesses. We turn off CNN. We don’t buy Ivanka’s bracelets.”
The NBA teams in question were boycotting apartheid. Liberals denounced the idea that all Muslims are bad because a few Muslims did bad things, but they embrace the idea that supporters of Trump are a monolithic block, all of whom supported him for his misogyny and because he wants to deport Muslims.
They do not accept that anyone might support him in spite of those rather than because of them, just as they supported Clinton despite her Wall Street speeches and her evasions of the email server issue. For the record, I supported neither candidate; for policy reasons, not because of the childish ad hominem attacks each was throwing at the other.
And, as losers tend to do, Liberals are crying “foul,”
“In a democratic government, all votes should be equal, thus the first step towards making an undemocratic government is to divide the people, so that the vast majority of them do not really have an effective vote. The majority of people in the United States are like this – so much so, that it is part of the primer on presidential elections.”
(Etcetera, most of it gibberish.) The losing side always claims the election was fraudulent and/or that the system doesn’t work. The Republicans made such claims in 2008 and 2012, and Democrats are making it now as they did in 2000. The loser walks away from the poker table accusing the winner of cheating. It was always thus.
Liberals, actually, are not tolerant of ideas that differ from their own, and we are learning this year that they are extraordinarily ungracious losers.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Small Things
Yesterday I was channel surfing and happened across the end of a high school girls volleyball game. The screen said “Championship point,” so I paused to see what would happen. It went back to a tie, went back and forth several times, and finally there was a winning team.
The winning team was all excited, of course; jumped into a pile and then hugged each other and high-fived. The camera moved to the losing team. Surprise. No tears, they were all smiling and congratulating each other on a game well played. They may not have won the championship, but they looked like winners to me.
Little thing. Means nothing, really. But things like that make me feel good.
The winning team was all excited, of course; jumped into a pile and then hugged each other and high-fived. The camera moved to the losing team. Surprise. No tears, they were all smiling and congratulating each other on a game well played. They may not have won the championship, but they looked like winners to me.
Little thing. Means nothing, really. But things like that make me feel good.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Phantasy Phootball
I am now better than the Chargers! I realize that's a low bar, but I'll take what I can get. After a three game winning streak, I'm back to .500 and am in a four-way tie for seventh place in a twelve-team league.
It doesn't take much to excite me these days.
It doesn't take much to excite me these days.
Monday, November 14, 2016
They're Called Elections
As these protests continue, as calls are made for the electoral college to refuse their mandate and elect Clinton, I just don’t get it. These people are not claiming that the election was fraudulent. They are not claiming any kind of 2000 deal, where the court prevented votes from being counted. They simply want the election overturned because they lost. What do they think an election is?
Sure, they didn’t want Trump to win. Neither did I, and I didn’t vote for him. A lot of these protestors, apparently, were sitting in their “safe spaces,” reading the polls and planning the coronation, but this was an election, not a coronation.
Maybe, instead of simply calling their opponents “stupid, evil” and “ignorant,” they should have emerged from their little “safe spaces” and tried to use reason to bring their opponents over to their point of view. How many people will you persuade to vote with you by calling them “deplorable?” Calling names feels good, but it doesn’t grow your ranks.
No one ever told me why I should vote for Hillary Clinton, other than that she was less evil than Trump, or that I would make history by “breaking the glass ceiling.” Mostly I was simply called vile names for saying that I did not intend to do so.
They brought this on themselves by their insularity, and their unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion, and now they are just flailing to avoid blaming themselves for it.
Sure, they didn’t want Trump to win. Neither did I, and I didn’t vote for him. A lot of these protestors, apparently, were sitting in their “safe spaces,” reading the polls and planning the coronation, but this was an election, not a coronation.
Maybe, instead of simply calling their opponents “stupid, evil” and “ignorant,” they should have emerged from their little “safe spaces” and tried to use reason to bring their opponents over to their point of view. How many people will you persuade to vote with you by calling them “deplorable?” Calling names feels good, but it doesn’t grow your ranks.
No one ever told me why I should vote for Hillary Clinton, other than that she was less evil than Trump, or that I would make history by “breaking the glass ceiling.” Mostly I was simply called vile names for saying that I did not intend to do so.
They brought this on themselves by their insularity, and their unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion, and now they are just flailing to avoid blaming themselves for it.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Hot
Thursday, November 10th, 12:00 noon, Temperature 96 degrees in Mission Valley. Yes, November. Today was a cold wave; only 90 degrees at noon.
The Popular Vote
Clinton supporters are making much of the fact that "she won the popular vote." Let's put that into proportion.
In the nation as a whole she received 395,595 more votes than her opponent, out of 120.5 million cast, which amounts to a 0.3% margin. Significantly less than half of one percent.
She received a winning margin of 2,568,841 in California, a state in which a dead Democrat was once elected as mayor.
In the nation as a whole, then, excluding California, she lost the popular vote by 2,173,246 votes of 111.9 million cast, for a 1.9% margin.
I am unimpressed with the "she won the popular vote" argument.
In the nation as a whole she received 395,595 more votes than her opponent, out of 120.5 million cast, which amounts to a 0.3% margin. Significantly less than half of one percent.
She received a winning margin of 2,568,841 in California, a state in which a dead Democrat was once elected as mayor.
In the nation as a whole, then, excluding California, she lost the popular vote by 2,173,246 votes of 111.9 million cast, for a 1.9% margin.
I am unimpressed with the "she won the popular vote" argument.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Protesting Democracy?
Thousands are marching in protest against the election of Donald Trump? What, did they not think this was not a real election? They like democracy, but only when their point of view prevails? That's not democracy. Totalitarian nations run elections where only one name is on the ballot; democracies don't do that.
A numbers of colleges are allowing students to skip classes and are cancelling or rescheduling exams to allow students to recover from the "emotional trauma" of the election. I guess retiring to their "safe spaces" didn't get the job done. I have seen these students referred to as "emotional hemophiliacs," which seems fairly apt. They, too, are able to be okay only when their side wins. They've been getting "participation trophies" all their lives and are finding out that real life isn't that easy. They can't handle it, and it's only going to get worse for them.
Both sides had horrible candidates, and they knew it. They Republican Party tried to repudiate their horrible candidate. The Democratic Party embraced their horrible candidate. Both parties deserved to lose, but only one did.
A numbers of colleges are allowing students to skip classes and are cancelling or rescheduling exams to allow students to recover from the "emotional trauma" of the election. I guess retiring to their "safe spaces" didn't get the job done. I have seen these students referred to as "emotional hemophiliacs," which seems fairly apt. They, too, are able to be okay only when their side wins. They've been getting "participation trophies" all their lives and are finding out that real life isn't that easy. They can't handle it, and it's only going to get worse for them.
Both sides had horrible candidates, and they knew it. They Republican Party tried to repudiate their horrible candidate. The Democratic Party embraced their horrible candidate. Both parties deserved to lose, but only one did.
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
On Democracy
President Obama said it very well. “We are all on the same side. This was an intramural scrimmage. In the end, we are all on the same team.”
Democracy is hard. It is not for the faint hearted. People who live in authoritarian states have their decisions made for them. In democracy we have to make our own decisions, and then we have to live with them. It’s not for the candy assed, but it’s what makes a nation great.
This nation has made some good decisions and it has made some bad ones. Only time will tell which kind this one is. The nation has not only survived all of its decisions, it has thrived almost continuously throughout all of them. I have no doubt that will continue.
Democracy is hard. It is not for the faint hearted. People who live in authoritarian states have their decisions made for them. In democracy we have to make our own decisions, and then we have to live with them. It’s not for the candy assed, but it’s what makes a nation great.
This nation has made some good decisions and it has made some bad ones. Only time will tell which kind this one is. The nation has not only survived all of its decisions, it has thrived almost continuously throughout all of them. I have no doubt that will continue.
Irony
The Democratic establishment rigged the primary election to assure Hillary Clinton as their nominee, to deny that nomination to Bernie Sanders, and they got this.
And in a final touch fully illustrating who she is, she sent John Podesta, her campaign manager, to her party site to tell her faithful to go home; to tell them the lie that it was not over, and that votes were still being counted. Ten minutes later she called Donald Trump and conceded the election, and left without speaking to her faithful supporters who had waited for her for upward of twelve hours. No formal concession speech (update: until a pretty good one the next day), no public thank you to her people.
And in a final touch fully illustrating who she is, she sent John Podesta, her campaign manager, to her party site to tell her faithful to go home; to tell them the lie that it was not over, and that votes were still being counted. Ten minutes later she called Donald Trump and conceded the election, and left without speaking to her faithful supporters who had waited for her for upward of twelve hours. No formal concession speech (update: until a pretty good one the next day), no public thank you to her people.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Stadium Proposal
When a woman goes through life getting a sugar daddy to pay her expenses for her we call her a gold digger. When a man does similarly, letting a woman pay his way, we call him a gigolo. In either case we say that the person in question is morally bankrupt.
When a city, however, wants to have a football stadium and finds a way to make someone else, visitors in the case of Measure C, pay the cost of it we applaud the brilliance of that thinking and say, “Oh good for you.”
A city that wants to have that which it is unwilling to pay for is a society which is as morally bankrupt as any gold digger or gigolo.
Unfortunately, this measure is symptomatic of the nature of today’s society in general. We want what we want but, unwilling to pay what it costs to have it, we insist on having it anyway. Make someone else pay for it, or just add it to the nation's inexhaustible "credit card."
When a city, however, wants to have a football stadium and finds a way to make someone else, visitors in the case of Measure C, pay the cost of it we applaud the brilliance of that thinking and say, “Oh good for you.”
A city that wants to have that which it is unwilling to pay for is a society which is as morally bankrupt as any gold digger or gigolo.
Unfortunately, this measure is symptomatic of the nature of today’s society in general. We want what we want but, unwilling to pay what it costs to have it, we insist on having it anyway. Make someone else pay for it, or just add it to the nation's inexhaustible "credit card."
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Election? What Election?
For the zillionth time, we have a headline reading, “US air strike kills top Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan,” or Iraq, or Yemen, or Somalia, or Syria, or... The article refers to it as a “precision air strike,” but since the bombs that are dropped with such precision destroy several city blocks, I doubt that people living anywhere near the targets would agree with that description.
I’m trying to decide whether our leadership is continuing to follow this policy simply because they cannot think of anything else to do, or because they think it is working. Either one is pretty frightening, implying as it does that we are led by people who are either stupid or insane, perhaps both. Given, however, that they are also accusing the Russians of tampering with our elections one has to lean toward “both.”
When Obama took office we were doing these air strikes, some of them by drone, in two countries. Now we are conducting these strikes, killing the “terrorist leadership,” in no fewer than eight countries.
How can any reasonable, sane person claim that spreading the devastation of death and destruction fourfold is a success decreasing the impact of terrorism in the world? And yet both of this year’s candidates promise us, in the brief pauses from calling each other whoremonger and crook, that they will not only continue this policy, they will redouble it.
Russia isn’t screwing up our election, we’re doing that all by ourselves.
I’m trying to decide whether our leadership is continuing to follow this policy simply because they cannot think of anything else to do, or because they think it is working. Either one is pretty frightening, implying as it does that we are led by people who are either stupid or insane, perhaps both. Given, however, that they are also accusing the Russians of tampering with our elections one has to lean toward “both.”
When Obama took office we were doing these air strikes, some of them by drone, in two countries. Now we are conducting these strikes, killing the “terrorist leadership,” in no fewer than eight countries.
How can any reasonable, sane person claim that spreading the devastation of death and destruction fourfold is a success decreasing the impact of terrorism in the world? And yet both of this year’s candidates promise us, in the brief pauses from calling each other whoremonger and crook, that they will not only continue this policy, they will redouble it.
Russia isn’t screwing up our election, we’re doing that all by ourselves.
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
Health Care Costs
Opponents of Obamacare are outraged because people on the exchanges are going to see premium increases of 25% this year. I would respond by saying that people on the exchanges should consider themselves fortunate.
Our employer-provided health insurance premium is increasing 35% this year. With the addition of copay and deductible increases, our overall increase in health care costs will be about 42% in the coming year, assuming that the amount of health care that we require remains constant.
And before you blame the employer, the percentage paid by the employer this year is the same as it was last year. These increases are from the insurance company.
Our employer-provided health insurance premium is increasing 35% this year. With the addition of copay and deductible increases, our overall increase in health care costs will be about 42% in the coming year, assuming that the amount of health care that we require remains constant.
And before you blame the employer, the percentage paid by the employer this year is the same as it was last year. These increases are from the insurance company.
Fantasy Football
With a win this weekend, I am no longer tied for the league's worst record; I am tied for the league's second worst record and with the San Diego Chargers at 3-5. There is only one team in my league which has earned fewer points than I have, and only one team that has more points scored against them. I am beginning to think that I really suck at fantasy football.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Dean Baker is an Idiot Squared
I have frequently seen concerns about rising interest rates brushed aside with a casual argument that we “can always buy back debt at a discount” if that happens. Each time I have asked the speaker what that means I have either received a dumb look or been told that if they have to explain it to me that I will not understand the explanation.
Well, Dean Baker explained it three years ago. I suspected that it was going to be frustrating and entertaining when I saw the words “Financial Engineering” in the title, because those words never bode well. It exceeded my expectations.
“An overlooked possibility for reducing a high debt burden,” he says, “is simply buying back bonds at a discount when interest rates rise, as is widely predicted.”
“Long-term bonds that are issued at low interest rates,” he continues, “will sell at substantial discounts to their face value if market interest rates rise. Looking at publicly held marketable debt issued as of the end of February 2013, the face value of the debt is $3,857 billion. The projected market value of this debt is $3,399 billion for an implied debt reduction of $458 billion, or just under 2.3 percent of the GDP projected for 2017.”
He concludes, “The interest burden on the Treasury will not change through these transactions. The only effect will be to lower the official value of outstanding debt. However if people in policy positions continue to attach importance to this number then this sort of debt exchange should rank high on the list of policy options. There is no less costly way to eliminate close to half a trillion dollars in debt.”
The term “buying back debt at a discount” sounded to me like a self-licking ice cream cone (as in, “With what funds are you going to buy that debt?”), but it turns out to be a self-licking ice cream cone with no cone and very little ice cream.
A quick lesson on what a bond is. It is a “note” of money borrowed and has a nominal face value. It has a market value which may be higher or lower than the face value, depending on how badly someone wants to buy or sell it. It pays interest, usually quarterly, at a fixed interest rate which was determined at the time it was created.
So, let’s start with the basic principle of “buying back bonds at a discount when interest rates rise.” Since the government does not have a lot of cash laying around, the money to buy those bonds is going to come from… Wait for it… From selling more bonds. So how does selling high-interest bonds in order to buy and retire low-interest bonds improve your financial position?
Well, it might, if you bought the low-interest bonds cheaply enough to offset the higher interest that you will pay on the new, higher-interest bonds that you sold in order to buy them. You would have to buy them really, really cheaply, and the 12% discount that Baker cites later on is nowhere nearly enough to do that.
And if you tried to buy them cheaply enough to offset the difference in interest you would not have much luck, because that would be a bad deal for the holder of the bonds and he would just keep them until you offered him a better price. People who buy and hold bonds are not as stupid as economists are.
The net result though, in any case, is that you might have a lower debt burden, but you will be paying a higher interest rate on it. You probably, almost certainly, will not come out ahead of the game any more than the inventor of a perpetual motion machine will succeed.
He says that the “as of the end of February 2013, the face value of the debt is $3,857 billion,” but he’s more than a little off, there. According to the government, as of 9/30/2012, the debt was $16,066 billion, so he’s off by $12,209 billion, plus whatever growth the debt experienced in Oct 2012 through Feb 2013. Okay, I’m nitpicking, but this is not a minor inaccuracy.
“The projected market value of this debt,” he says, ”is $3,399 billion for an implied debt reduction of $458 billion…” And my projected blood pressure for 2017 is about 350/220 if I keep reading what people pull out of their asses and label as “projections.”
“…or," he continues, “just under 2.3 percent of the GDP projected for 2017,” as if that percentage would mean anything even if it was a real number and not just one that he pulled out of his ass.
He then says that, “The interest burden on the Treasury will not change through these transactions,” proving that he is not even living on this planet. The whole reason for this exercise in “financial engineering” is that interest rates have risen, and we just sold $3.4 trillion in new bonds at a higher quarterly interest payment in order to do it. How can that possibly make “no change on the interest burden?”
He finishes with a smug statement that, “There is no less costly way to eliminate close to half a trillion dollars in debt,” as if reducing the debt by 2.5% was some kind of major achievement.
Well, Dean Baker explained it three years ago. I suspected that it was going to be frustrating and entertaining when I saw the words “Financial Engineering” in the title, because those words never bode well. It exceeded my expectations.
“An overlooked possibility for reducing a high debt burden,” he says, “is simply buying back bonds at a discount when interest rates rise, as is widely predicted.”
“Long-term bonds that are issued at low interest rates,” he continues, “will sell at substantial discounts to their face value if market interest rates rise. Looking at publicly held marketable debt issued as of the end of February 2013, the face value of the debt is $3,857 billion. The projected market value of this debt is $3,399 billion for an implied debt reduction of $458 billion, or just under 2.3 percent of the GDP projected for 2017.”
He concludes, “The interest burden on the Treasury will not change through these transactions. The only effect will be to lower the official value of outstanding debt. However if people in policy positions continue to attach importance to this number then this sort of debt exchange should rank high on the list of policy options. There is no less costly way to eliminate close to half a trillion dollars in debt.”
The term “buying back debt at a discount” sounded to me like a self-licking ice cream cone (as in, “With what funds are you going to buy that debt?”), but it turns out to be a self-licking ice cream cone with no cone and very little ice cream.
A quick lesson on what a bond is. It is a “note” of money borrowed and has a nominal face value. It has a market value which may be higher or lower than the face value, depending on how badly someone wants to buy or sell it. It pays interest, usually quarterly, at a fixed interest rate which was determined at the time it was created.
So, let’s start with the basic principle of “buying back bonds at a discount when interest rates rise.” Since the government does not have a lot of cash laying around, the money to buy those bonds is going to come from… Wait for it… From selling more bonds. So how does selling high-interest bonds in order to buy and retire low-interest bonds improve your financial position?
Well, it might, if you bought the low-interest bonds cheaply enough to offset the higher interest that you will pay on the new, higher-interest bonds that you sold in order to buy them. You would have to buy them really, really cheaply, and the 12% discount that Baker cites later on is nowhere nearly enough to do that.
And if you tried to buy them cheaply enough to offset the difference in interest you would not have much luck, because that would be a bad deal for the holder of the bonds and he would just keep them until you offered him a better price. People who buy and hold bonds are not as stupid as economists are.
The net result though, in any case, is that you might have a lower debt burden, but you will be paying a higher interest rate on it. You probably, almost certainly, will not come out ahead of the game any more than the inventor of a perpetual motion machine will succeed.
He says that the “as of the end of February 2013, the face value of the debt is $3,857 billion,” but he’s more than a little off, there. According to the government, as of 9/30/2012, the debt was $16,066 billion, so he’s off by $12,209 billion, plus whatever growth the debt experienced in Oct 2012 through Feb 2013. Okay, I’m nitpicking, but this is not a minor inaccuracy.
“The projected market value of this debt,” he says, ”is $3,399 billion for an implied debt reduction of $458 billion…” And my projected blood pressure for 2017 is about 350/220 if I keep reading what people pull out of their asses and label as “projections.”
“…or," he continues, “just under 2.3 percent of the GDP projected for 2017,” as if that percentage would mean anything even if it was a real number and not just one that he pulled out of his ass.
He then says that, “The interest burden on the Treasury will not change through these transactions,” proving that he is not even living on this planet. The whole reason for this exercise in “financial engineering” is that interest rates have risen, and we just sold $3.4 trillion in new bonds at a higher quarterly interest payment in order to do it. How can that possibly make “no change on the interest burden?”
He finishes with a smug statement that, “There is no less costly way to eliminate close to half a trillion dollars in debt,” as if reducing the debt by 2.5% was some kind of major achievement.
Polling Has Spoken
We are slightly less than two weeks away from election day, and Donald Trump has lost the election. There is no longer any suspense, the polls and the media have confirmed that Clinton is our next president and there is no point in the rest of us wasting our time voting. Sick.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
They Still Have The Browns
Sports media is making much about Cleveland shedding the "loser image," first with the Cavaliers and now with the Indians. They assume, I guess, that the baseball team will win the World Series, but the Cubbies might throw a monkey wrench into that assumption. And Cleveland will always have the Browns, an NFL team which currently has an 0-7 record.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Paul Krugman is an Idiot
Paul Krugman has a column yesterday in which he once more assures us that we should not worry about the debt. Eat, drink and be happy because big debt is good and bigger debt is even better.
To bolster this he shows a nice chart about the ratios of debt of GDP as calculated back in ancient history when economists were stupid and ignorant and now, six years later, when the wisdom of Solomon has descended upon them from God knows where.
There are several things wrong with his chart. The first is that the ratio of debt to GDP is an utterly meaningless figure that economists began using instead of the ratio of debt to federal revenue when the latter, which does have some meaning, became so high as to freak out the public. The current ratio of debt to federal revenue is 585% which would send the average taxpayer into heart failure, while the ratio of debt to GDP is 105%.
It also doesn’t occur to him to question why the projection has changed or to wonder if it might change again. Is he certain that we will not have another recession between now and 2046, or that Congress might mess around with federal revenues?
Nor does he seem to question the validity of his own chart, but perhaps he should. The current debt is $19.3 trillion, while the GDP is $18.4 trillion, giving me the 105% that I cited earlier. But if you look at his chart, it shows the ratio at somewhere near 75% from 2013 until at least 2022. If they can’t get the current numbers right, I don’t have a lot of confidence in their future projections.
To bolster this he shows a nice chart about the ratios of debt of GDP as calculated back in ancient history when economists were stupid and ignorant and now, six years later, when the wisdom of Solomon has descended upon them from God knows where.
There are several things wrong with his chart. The first is that the ratio of debt to GDP is an utterly meaningless figure that economists began using instead of the ratio of debt to federal revenue when the latter, which does have some meaning, became so high as to freak out the public. The current ratio of debt to federal revenue is 585% which would send the average taxpayer into heart failure, while the ratio of debt to GDP is 105%.
It also doesn’t occur to him to question why the projection has changed or to wonder if it might change again. Is he certain that we will not have another recession between now and 2046, or that Congress might mess around with federal revenues?
Nor does he seem to question the validity of his own chart, but perhaps he should. The current debt is $19.3 trillion, while the GDP is $18.4 trillion, giving me the 105% that I cited earlier. But if you look at his chart, it shows the ratio at somewhere near 75% from 2013 until at least 2022. If they can’t get the current numbers right, I don’t have a lot of confidence in their future projections.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Let's Not Party
There is a proposal on next month’s ballot to build a “convadium,” which isn’t even a thing, for the Chargers to play football in and comic book fans to hold conventions in. Hopefully, these events will not happen at the same time, but that points out one of many weaknesses of having a convention center that doubles as a football stadium.
Fifty thousand cars converging on downtown San Diego at one time on a single freeway is another.
The paper today had a breakdown of a poll regarding voting on this issue, and one thing struck me as possibly noteworthy. Of Republicans, 38% intend to vote against this idiocy, while among Democrats 37% intend to do so; not a big difference. The big difference is that among Independents, 53% intend to vote against alienating tourists in order to build a half-assed convention center for a half-assed football team.
Unlike both Democrats and Republicans, Independents seem to think that maybe a football team doesn’t need a convention center, which suggests to me that political parties make you stupid.
Fifty thousand cars converging on downtown San Diego at one time on a single freeway is another.
The paper today had a breakdown of a poll regarding voting on this issue, and one thing struck me as possibly noteworthy. Of Republicans, 38% intend to vote against this idiocy, while among Democrats 37% intend to do so; not a big difference. The big difference is that among Independents, 53% intend to vote against alienating tourists in order to build a half-assed convention center for a half-assed football team.
Unlike both Democrats and Republicans, Independents seem to think that maybe a football team doesn’t need a convention center, which suggests to me that political parties make you stupid.
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